At least 35 people have died in the wildfires burning across California, Oregon, and Washington, with several others still missing. The National Weather Service issued red-flag warnings through Monday night in some of the affected areas due to low moisture and strong winds. The flames have burned down homes and cars and left the region with poor air quality that might not improve until October, said Incident Meteorologist Dan Borsum of the National Weather Service.

The mother of 16-year-old Josiah Williams confirmed her son died in the North Complex Fire that blazed through California’s Sierra Nevada mountains this week. As of Saturday, at least 31 people had died in wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington. Emergency workers expected the death toll to rise sharply as they discovered more bodies in the rubble of burned towns.

A thick blanket of smoke continued to cast an orange haze over parts of the usually cool Willamette Valley in Oregon. Nearly 40 fires had burned more than 900,000 acres across the state in the past three days, according to Gov. Kate Brown. At least three people in the state have died and more than 500,000 residents, more than 10 percent of Oregon's population, have been forced to evacuate.

Unprecedented wildfires fanned by wind gusts of 50 mph killed at least three people as flames moved across seven Oregon counties and left many other areas on alert for possible evacuations. Oregon Deputy State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said the extent of the damage is unknown since many of the fire zones remain too dangerous to assess. A 1-year-old boy also died in Washington as wildfires burned through more than 480,000 acres in the usually wet, cool state.

Rescuers in military helicopters assisted 207 campers in California’s Sierra National Forest after a wildfire left them stranded over the weekend. The Creek Fire began on Friday and burned through more than 114 square miles of timber and injured a dozen people, including at least two severely. Several blazes also started in Southern California, including one that closed off the mountainous roads in Angeles National Forest. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said some 14,800 firefighters are battling 23 major fires in the state.

Homeowners and neighbors wielding garden hoses, dirt, and shovels snuck past evacuation lines to battle blazes. Despite repeated warnings, organized groups of civilians have continued to head to the front lines near Santa Cruz, Calif. One man took buckets of water from a hot tub to douse a small blaze near a neighbor’s house. “I haven’t seen people reengage to this scale, particularly with the level of organization,” said Ken Pimlott, retired director of the state’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The powerful Category 4 storm came ashore near Cameron Parish in southwestern Louisiana early Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. Videos from the area showed coastal streets covered in water and windows blown out of a tall building in Lake Charles. Authorities ordered more than 580,000 coastal residents to evacuate, yet at least 150 people in Cameron Parish refused to leave. Laura is the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the United States this year.