Just as Australia experienced an unprecedented bushfire season over 2019-20, America's west coast is now encountering the same.

Wildfires, as they are known, across the US west coast have already killed dozens of people and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands.

The states of California, Oregon and Washington have been hardest hit.

At least 33 people had died, as of Monday afternoon (AEST), and dozens more were missing.

Entire neighbourhoods have been wiped out and cities, such as San Francisco, were experiencing hazardous air quality.

Hundreds of fires across America's west have burned through millions of hectares.

Many of the fires burning were ignited by lightning strikes and were fanned by hot, dry and windy conditions.

It came on the back of record hot temperatures in parts of America's west.

California recorded its hottest August on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Climate change has been blamed for the unprecedented conditions. Oregon Governor Kate Brown told CBS News the conditions were a "perfect firestorm".

"We saw incredible winds. We saw very cold, hot temperatures ... we have a landscape that has seen 30 years of drought. This is truly the bellwether for climate change on the west coast," she said.

California is no stranger to wildfires. In 2018, fires ripped through the state's north. More than 100 people died and almost 25,000 structures were destroyed.

It burnt out about 800,000 hectares and was the most destructive in the state's history. But that figure has already been overtaken from fires this year.

The season has been called unprecedented by many scientists and politicians.

Fire and Rescue NSW former commissioner Greg Mullins was in California during the fires last year but, through his role on the Climate Council, said the fire season was much worse this year.

"The area burned in California since the start of the fire season is 20 times larger than what had burned this time last year," he said.

"This is the first time in recorded history that more than 1 million hectares have burned in California in a single season.

"I am hearing stories from friends in the states who are considering moving because of the increasingly terrifying wildfire seasons driven by climate change."

Ms Brown said fires in Oregon had burned more than double the land it would in an average year in just one week.

"About every year for the last 10 years, we burn about 500,000 acres (202,342 hectares)," she said.

"This year, week alone, we've burned over 1 million acres (404,685 hectares) of beautiful Oregon.

"We've got fires on the coast. We've got fires in communities right up abutting our metropolitan areas and southern Oregon has been devastated."

At this stage, the US wildfires are smaller than the Australian bushfires of the 2019-20 fire season. It has been reported that about 2 million hectares of land has already burned in America across 12 states from the fires. Over the course of the 2019-20 Australian bushfire season more than 17 million hectares of land burned, according to the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council.

More than 5 million hectares burned in NSW, a report from the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment said.

California has had its largest fire on record as the August Complex fire, in the state's north, reached more than 350,000 hectares.

Australia also recorded its largest fire on record in the 2019-20 bushfire season when the Gospers Mountain fire reached more than 500,000 hectares in size.

The US wildfires is just another in a line of problems to wreak havoc in the United States in 2020.

But whether the wildfires will have any noticeable impact on the November 3 election is questionable.

The states where the major fires are burning - Washington, Oregon and California - are already Democrat-leaning states so any swings against President Donald Trump are not going to have much of an impact.

Both Mr Trump and his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, have spoken about the fires in recent days.

Mr Trump remained quiet about the fires until the weekend. When he finally addressed the crowd he blamed the fires on bad forest management, not climate change.

"They have never had anything like this but you know it is about forest management," he said.

"Please remember the words. Very simple: forest management."

On the other hand, Mr Biden said the fires were caused by climate change.

"The science is clear and deadly signs like these are unmistakable - climate change poses an imminent, existential threat to our way of life," Mr Biden said in statement via his campaign team.

"President Trump can try to deny that reality but the facts are undeniable. We absolutely must act now to avoid a future defined by an unending barrage of tragedies like the one American families are enduring across the west today."