Many evacuees among the tens of thousands forced to flee a cluster of wildfires near Spokane, Washington, were allowed back to their homes on Sunday as firefighters stepped up efforts to extinguish the remaining hot spots.

Firefighting Efforts

Despite another round of hot, dry weather over the weekend, nearly 1,700 firefighters managed to prevent further spread of flames from three blazes that erupted on the outskirts of the state’s second-most populous city on August 1, officials said.

As of Sunday, those fires had scorched 10,000 acres and destroyed or heavily damaged more than 900 homes in and around Spokane. At the height of the conflagration, as many as 64,000 residents were under evacuation orders as wind-driven flames engulfed neighborhoods and kept firefighters on the defensive.

No serious injuries or fatalities have been reported. For several days, the Spokane-area fires ranked as the top firefighting priority in the U.S. as a whole, including the drought-parched Pacific Northwest, where dozens of wildfires have burned for weeks, belching smoke and soot across a wide region.

Investigation and Aftermath

A local resident, Aaron Farinacci, 37, was arrested last Tuesday and charged with arson in connection with one of the blazes. A judge has ordered that Farinacci undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he is competent to stand trial.

Communities in the heart of the fire zones will remain off-limits to residents indefinitely until authorities can ensure conditions are safe. But roads were reopened and evacuation orders lifted in communities beyond the immediate footprint of the fires, allowing people displaced from those areas to return home, Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said at a Sunday afternoon news conference.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.