Three separate wildfires in Southern California erupted Wednesday in hot, windy conditions, growing rapidly and forcing mandatory evacuations. Smoke plumes from the wildfires were visible for hundreds of miles as the fires created their own weather, sending pyrocumulus clouds tens of thousands of feet into the air.

The fires broke out during a historic, prolonged heat wave that in some places even broke records.

Stunning images from a network of webcams at UC San Diego showed fires raging through forests and dangerously close to residential areas.

Apocalyptic skies appeared in Big Bear on Tuesday as the Line Fire pushed smoke across the beloved resort area in the San Bernardino National Forest. An orange glow appeared over the lake as the sun was filtered out by thick smoke.

The Line Fire started on Thursday, September 5, just northeast of Highland in the San Bernardino Mountains. By Tuesday afternoon, the fire was at least 27,000 acres in size and growing rapidly.

Mandatory evacuations are in effect on the south side of Big Bear Lake, including the Boulder Bay neighborhood. Buildings burned in Runnings Springs, a mountain community west of Big Bear, late Tuesday afternoon.

A stunning scene unfolded Tuesday morning as the Airport Fire spread across Santiago Peak in the Santa Ana Mountains, the highest peak in Orange County, also known as Saddleback Mountain. Fire swirls were captured by UC San Diego webcams as the fire approached infrastructure on the peak.

Temperatures as high as 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) were recorded at a weather station on Santiago Peak, with wind gusts of 93 km/h (58 mph) as the fire front moved across the mountain just before noon.

The Airport Fire began on Monday, September 9, in Trabuco Canyon east of Rancho Santa Margarita. The fire was over 19,000 acres in size as of Tuesday evening.

Webcams showed ski lifts burning at Mountain High and Mt. Baldy ski resorts in the San Gabriel Mountains on Tuesday afternoon. The Bridge Fire started Sunday, Sept. 8, just north of the San Gabriel River in the Angeles National Forest. The blaze had burned 34,000 acres by Tuesday evening.

The fire created its own weather: a large pyrocumulus cloud rose thousands of meters into the air.

The fire-induced pyrocumulus cloud was visible from webcams hundreds of miles away. Pyrocumulus clouds are formed by rapidly rising air from the heat of wildfires, covering a plume of smoke with a cauliflower-like cloud. Ash and cinders can rise in the cloud and fall in the wind, sparking new fires.