Glimpses of blue skies have given hope to firefighters battling the deadliest wildfires in California history, which have killed at least 40 people and reduced whole neighbourhoods to ash.
Two of the three deadliest blazes were more than half contained by Sunday, making it safe enough for law enforcement to begin inspecting some evacuated areas in hard-hit Sonoma County, according to the county sheriff's office.
Only after those inspections are complete would they begin to decide when it would be safe for residents whose homes were not among the 5700 structures destroyed by more than a dozen separate wildfires, which ignited a week ago in the state's wine country and have since consumed an area larger than New York City.
"The skies are blue," Don Martini, a 69-year-old retired carpenter, said after waking up at the Sonoma Raceway campgrounds, where he spent the previous four days with only smoke and smog overhead. "I haven't seen a blue sky since this whole thing started."
Some at the raceway evacuation centre hoped to return to their homes on Sunday.
In neighbouring Mendocino County, the sheriff's office said they would begin to allow people to return to some evacuated neighbourhoods on Sunday. They warned of traffic delays at checkpoints, where returning residents would be able to pick up protective equipment and safety information.
But the fast-moving fires north of San Francisco remained a danger, with thousands more people ordered to leave their homes on Saturday as the death toll crept upward. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for.
About 11,000 firefighters supported by air tankers and helicopters battled fires that have consumed more than 88,000 hectares.
There were cautious words of relief as firefighters gained control of two of the deadliest fires overnight in Napa and Sonoma counties. The Tubbs fire was 60 per cent contained and the Atlas fire 56 per cent contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in its Sunday morning advisory.
But barely a third of the Redwood Valley fire, which alone is responsible for eight deaths in Mendocino County, was extinguished.
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CalFire said firefighters had "made good progress towards the containment" of the deadly blazes.
The weather was helping somewhat: Strong winds that had fanned flames had largely died down, but dry gusts would still whip up on Sunday, the National Weather Service said. No rain was forecast to fall on the fires until Wednesday or later.
The 40 confirmed fatalities, including 22 in Sonoma County, make the fires California's deadliest since record-keeping began, surpassing the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.
With 235 people still missing on Saturday in Sonoma County alone and rubble from thousands of incinerated dwellings yet to be searched, authorities expect the death toll to climb.
About 75,000 people remain displaced.
