Three wildland firefighters were killed and two others suffered burn injuries on Saturday while battling a fast-growing fire on the Colorado-Utah border, the US Wildland Fire Service said, as hot, dry and windy conditions drove the total number of uncontained large fires nationwide to 45. 

The firefighters were overrun by advancing flames while responding to the Knowles and Gore fires in Mesa County, Colorado, in what the US Department of the Interior described as a burnover incident in which crews deployed emergency fire shelters, the department said in a statement. The two surviving firefighters were hospitalised with burn injuries, Xinhua news agency reported.