Fire crews in California and Oregon reported making progress on several blazes over the weekend, as lighter winds and lower temperatures aided the battle against the massive fires raging across the west. But officials in both states told residents to brace for bad news, as rescue teams start combing through towns and neighborhoods leveled by the infernos. In Oregon, state emergency management director Andrew Phelps said officials were preparing for “a mass fatality incident” based on the number of structures lost in the fires. State officials have not released an exact death count but at least eight casualties have been reported. Governor Kate Brown said dozens of people were still missing. Fires in the state have burned more than 1,500 sq miles, nearly double the size of a typical year. Fire crews in the south of the state said Saturday they had made headway against the Almeda fire, which is now 50% contained. Teams in the north were were able to establish positions to limit the spread of the Beachie Creek fire in Clackamas county, near the city of Portland. The fires in Oregon have forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate, some have had to flee the fires twice. Governor Brown on Friday corrected an earlier statement by the state Office of Emergency Management that said half a million people had been ordered to evacuate. More than 40,000 had been evacuated and about 500,000 had either been told to leave their homes or to prepare to do so, she said. Scores were missing in Jackson and Marion counties, she added. Marion county sheriff Joe Kast said Friday evening that searchers found two victims of the Beachie Creek fire near Salem. Authorities also said they had arrested a 41-year-old man on two charges of arson, concerning a fire that started on Tuesday in the Phoenix area. The fire burned hundreds of homes and had an ignition point in Ashland near a spot where a body was found. Authorities said the man denied starting the fire. An Oregon sheriff’s deputy was placed on leave after a video surfaced in which he suggested left-wing activists had been “causing hell” in setting wildfires, a claim that has been debunked by the FBI. Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said he placed the deputy on leave after learning of the video, which recorded the deputy referring to “antifa” and saying that people’s lives and property were at stake because “these guys got some vendetta.” The FBI has investigated several unsubstantiated claims blaming coordinated groups of arsonists from both the far left and far right for setting the blazes and found them to be untrue. Officials in Oregon and Washington state have turned to Facebook to knock down the competing narratives. Shyanne Summers evacuated from her home in Dickie Prairie, a hamlet south-east of Molalla, on Wednesday and was forced to flee the flames again later in the week. She and her boyfriend were camped out across a complex of three tents in Milwaukie, along with their four cats and two small dogs. When they evacuated on Wednesday the smoke was so thick that “you could hardly see from me to you”, she said, indicating visibility of around six feet. Summers said she had almost fainted as she was packing her things to leave. “I’ve never been so afraid,” she said. In California meanwhile, a thick layer of smoke helped crews corral the monster North Complex fire, which has become the deadliest blaze in the state this year. The fire in Butte county has burned more than 250,000 acres, killed at least nine people and all but destroyed the hamlet of Berry Creek. Among the victims is a 16-year-old boy who died while trying to flee the flames. Another 19 people remain unaccounted for, and rugged mountain areas remain too dangerous for search-and-rescue teams. “Right now, the areas that we need to search are too hot,” Butte county sheriff Kory Honea said. Smoke from the fire lingered over the town of Paradise, which was devastated by the Camp fire in 2018. Parts of Paradise were briefly under an evacuation warning this week, and the dark skies, crowded roads and falling ash brought back painful memories for a community still fighting to rebuild. “It’s scary,” said artist Patti Lloyd. “It triggers a lot of feelings from before. I feel bad for the people going through it now because I know what it feels like.” Firefighters in the state are battling more than 20 other major wildfires, and reported increased containment on many of them. The August Complex fire, which began as 37 separate fires north of Sacramento in mid-August and has grown into the largest fire on record in California, is now 25% contained. Nonetheless, gusty winds in the forecast for the far northern part of the state on Sunday have once again prompted warnings of high fire danger. The US west coast has seen a dramatic fire season so far, with fires consuming records amounts of land amid tinder-dry conditions exacerbated by the climate crisis. Hundreds of thousands of firefighters are stretched thin battling blazes in multiple states. Much of the west coast is clouded in a thick layer of smoke that is especially dangerous for those with respiratory conditions. The unhealthy air stretched from southwestern Canada, all the way through Washington, Oregon, California, and even northern Mexico, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In California, fires have burned more than 3m acres since mid-August and so many blazes are simultaneously whipping through dry wilderness that many have converged into massive “complexes”. Six of the top 20 largest wildfires in the state’s history have occurred this year, the state’s department of forestry and fire protection announced. At least 19 people have lost their lives. California governor Gavin Newsom on Friday said the debate around climate change was “over”. “Just come to the state of California,” he told reporters on a mountainside scorched by flames. “Observe it with your own eyes.” In Washington, where a one-year-old child died in the fires, governor Jay Inslee noted that in just the past five days his state had experienced its second-worst fire season, after 2015. He called the blazes “climate fires”, rather than wildfires. “This is not an act of God,” Inslee said. “This has happened because we have changed the climate.” The White House has confirmed that Donald Trump will visit California on Monday. The president has been largely quiet about the fires burning across the west. He approved funding for Oregon on Thursday and for California in August, and has tweeted about them once, on Friday. He has not addressed the crisis in public appearance. Agencies contributed to this report