Oslo (AFP) - Mankind's destruction caused by a nuclear war is just one "impulsive tantrum away", the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), warned on Sunday as the United States and North Korea exchange threats over the nation's nuclear tests.

"Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us?" ICAN head Beatrice Fihn said in a speech after receiving the peace prize on behalf of the anti-nuclear group.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiralled as Pyongyang has in recent months ramped up its number of missiles and nuclear tests.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un has exchanged warlike threats with US President Donald Trump, who has ordered a military show of force.

"The only rational course of action is to cease living under the conditions where our mutual destruction is only one impulsive tantrum away," Fihn added.

ICAN, a coalition of hundreds of NGOs around the world, has worked for a treaty banning nuclear weapons which was adopted in July by 122 countries.

The text was weakened by the absence of the nine nuclear powers among the signatories.

In an apparent snub of the ICAN-backed treaty, the three western nuclear powers -- the US, France and Britain -- broke with tradition by sending second-ranking diplomats rather than their ambassadors to Sunday's ceremony.

- 'Bruised ego'-

Supporters of nuclear weapons argue that they serve as a deterrent for starting a major conflict as it would guarantee mutual destruction for the nations involved.

"They are a madman's gun held permanently to our temple," Fihn said.

"These weapons were supposed to keep us free, but they deny us our freedoms."

Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said in her lecture during the ceremony that ICAN's "message resonates with millions of people who perceive that the threat of nuclear war is greater than it has been for a long time, not least due to the situation in North Korea".

Senior UN envoy Jeffrey Feltman on Saturday warned there was a grave risk that a miscalculation could trigger conflict with Pyongyang and urged the reclusive state to keep communication channels open.

Kim and Trump have taunted each other in recent months, with the US President pejoratively dubbing his rival "Little Rocket Man" and a "sick puppy".

"A moment of panic or carelessness, a misconstrued comment or bruised ego could easily lead us unavoidably to the destruction of entire cities," Fihn said.

- Hiroshima remembered -

Several survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, which killed more than 220,000 people 72 years ago, attended the ceremony in the Oslo City Hall.

One of them, Setsuko Thurlow, received the Nobel on behalf of ICAN jointly with Fihn.

Speaking to AFP ahead of the ceremony, Thurlow recalled the horrific aftermath of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, when she was 13 years old.

Thurlow described corpses lying on the ground, the injured and dying calling for help and the survivors looking like "a procession of ghosts".

"The hair was standing up and they were all burned on the skin and their flesh was hanging from their bones," she said.

"Some were carrying their eyeballs. It just was like hell on earth," added the 85-year-old who now lives in Canada and uses a wheelchair.

- 'Heed our warning' -

Although the number of nuclear weapons has dropped since the end of the Cold War, there are still around 15,000 atomic bombs on earth.

"Listen to our testimony. Heed our warning. And know that your actions are consequential," Thurlow said during her speech at the ceremony, referring to the leaders of nuclear-armed nations.

At a separate ceremony in Stockholm on Sunday, Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf handed over the Nobel prizes in literature, physics, chemistry, medicine and economics.

Each prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a cheque for nine million Swedish kroner (900,000 euros).

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A flare-up on the western edge of Southern California's largest and most destructive wildfire sent residents fleeing Sunday, as wind-fanned flames churned through canyons and down hillsides toward coastal towns.

Crews with help from water-dropping aircraft saved several homes as unpredictable gusts sent the blaze churning deeper into foothill areas northwest of Los Angeles that haven't burned in decades. New evacuations were ordered in Carpinteria, a seaside city in Santa Barbara County that has been under fire threat for days.

"The winds are kind of squirrely right now," said county fire spokesman Mike Eliason. "Some places the smoke is going straight up in the air, and others it's blowing sideways. Depends on what canyon we're in."

The department posted a photo of one residence engulfed in flames before dawn. It's unclear whether other structures burned. Thousands of homes in the county were without power.

Firefighters made significant progress Saturday on other fronts of the enormous fire that started Dec. 4 in neighboring Ventura County. Containment was way up on other major blazes in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties.

Forecasters said Santa Ana winds that whipped fires across the region last week would continue in some areas at least through Monday evening.

A lack of rain has officials on edge statewide because of parched conditions and no end in sight to the typical fire season.

"This is the new normal," Gov. Jerry Brown warned Saturday after surveying damage from the deadly Ventura fire. "We're about ready to have firefighting at Christmas. This is very odd and unusual."

High fire risk is expected to last into January and the governor and experts said climate change is making it a year-round threat.

Overall, the fires have destroyed nearly 800 homes and other buildings, killed dozens of horses and forced more than 200,000 people to flee flames that have burned over 270 square miles (700 square kilometers) since Dec. 4. One death, so far, a 70-year-old woman who crashed her car on an evacuation route, is attributed to the fire in Santa Paula, a small city where the fire began.

The Ventura County blaze continued to burn into rugged mountains in the Los Padres National Forest near the little town of Ojai and toward a preserve established for endangered California condors.

Ojai experienced hazardous levels of smoke at times and officials warned of unhealthy air for large swaths of the region. The South Coast Air Quality Management District urged residents to stay indoors if possible and avoid vigorous outdoor activities.

As fires burned in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, firefighters were already in place north of San Diego on Thursday when a major fire erupted and rapidly spread in the Fallbrook area, known for its avocado groves and horse stables in the rolling hills.

The fire swept through the San Luis Rey Training Facility, where it killed more than 40 elite thoroughbreds and destroyed more than 100 homes — most of them in a retirement community. Three people were burned trying to escape the fire that continued to smolder Sunday.

Most of last week's fires were in places that burned in the past, including one in the ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air that burned six homes and another in the city's rugged foothills above the community of Sylmar and in Santa Paula.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in Fallbrook and Brian Melley and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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