Environment & The Green Beat

Cooler weather has allowed fire crews to corral most of the wildfires across California, but a handful of stubborn, hard-to-reach mountain blazes this weekend were still keeping residents from their homes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said firefighters had managed to contain 98 percent of the lightning-sparked fires burning in California for nearly a month, and crews would now go into the fire areas to begin assessing the damage.

All but 38 of the more than 2,093 blazes sparked after a lighting storm on June 20 were extinguished around the state, leaving nearly 1,413 square miles of destruction in what officials said was the largest fire event in California history.

Authorities said most of state's remaining fires were on remote federal forest lands that were harder to contain because of drier, windier conditions at higher elevations.

Trinity & Humboldt Counties

Firefighters were working Saturday to stop a fire in the Shasta Trinity National Forest from spreading to the rural town of Junction City, where residents were ordered to evacuate a day earlier.

"Overall we're seeing the conditions stabilize," said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jason Kirchner. "The only problem with that in Northern California is, it's stabilized into hot, dry conditions."

Mandatory evacuations remained in effect Saturday for areas of Junction City, where a wildfire that had charred nearly 82 square miles in the far northern part of the state was 45 percent contained.

Residents in the Trinity County town of Hyampom and near Dry Lake in Humboldt County were ordered to stay away from their homes as flames from another blaze continued to spread.

That fire had burned more than 17 square miles and was 50 percent contained.

Monterey County

In the hilly range flanking the Big Sur coast in Monterey County, the Basin Complex Fire that had swept over 200 square miles - about 133,270 acres - of heavily forested land was 70 percent contained Saturday.

Most nearby residents have been allowed to return home, but some cabins were still being kept empty until fire crews finished a controlled burn designed to clear fuel from the path of the fire.

Widening containment lines by intentionally burning land to help protect communities threatened by the blzae was proving to be successful, fire officials said Saturday.

The fire has destroyed 27 homes and 34 other buildings since it started in late June.

There was a lot of support for the burnout operations during a community meeting in Carmel Valley on Friday night, according to fire officials.

The burning between Piney Creek and Arroyo Seco west of Carmel Valley Road began Friday afternoon and continued until early Saturday morning. Firefighters continued more controlled burning Saturday.

The fire had cost $58.2 million to fight and there were nine injuries so far.

Butte County

A wildfire still burning in Butte County had been 85 percent contained after forcing 10,000 people from their homes and causing one death.

Fifty homes and 10 outbuildings were destroyed and 86 square miles of terrain burned.

Fire crews in the Sierra Nevada are holding off flames in weeklong effort to keep a wildfire from spreading to Interstate 80 near the town of Blue Canyon.

That blaze had burned 31 square miles in the Tahoe National Forest.

Weather Helps Firefight

Cooler air, higher humidity and calmer winds this past week have helped firefighters make overall progress in the massive fire fight, said Alisha Herring, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention.

So far this year, a total of 1,447 square miles had burned, a staggering amount of land so early in the fire season. Fires consumed roughly 1,563 square miles in all of 2007, Kirchner indicated.

The state had spent $129.5 million on firefighting efforts since July 1, according to figures released Friday by the state Department of Finance. FEMA had committed more than $154 million to pay for firefighting, evacuations, shelter, traffic control, equipment and supplies.

Cal Fire updates on all the major blazes burning throughout the state are available online at: http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current.