Weather aids firefighters in Butte County

An estimated 10,000 Butte County residents were cleared to return to their homes Saturday after firefighters lifted most evacuation orders in the western county area and cooler weather slowed the spread of a wildfire that has burned more than 49,500 acres.

“Today a been a good day,” said Capt. Julie Hutchinson of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “We are cautiously optimistic that we have stopped the fire’s forward rate of spread.”

Fire officials listed the Butte blaze as 65% contained and said it probably would take several more days to bring the fire under complete control. But higher humidity, lower temperatures and weaker winds had helped slow the flames, Hutchinson said.

No further information was released about a body found Friday in a blackened home in the tiny town of Concow. Twenty-five other injuries were reported, Hutchinson said.

In the Big Sur area, fire officials reopened part of California 1 and expected to fully reopen the road at 8 a.m. this morning. The blaze has charred nearly 116,829 acres, making it the state’s biggest fire this season, and it was still burning on the remote east side of Los Padres National Forest. The fire was 61% contained by Saturday evening, officials reported.

Still, it continued to threaten some areas. As it burned east, firefighters imposed a mandatory evacuation for 217 homes in the Tassajara Road area, including the historic Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Five Buddhist monks had stayed behind to care for the facility as firefighters beat back flames that damaged three remote outbuildings.

Warmer weather, as a marine layer lifted and thick smoke cleared, hindered crews’ efforts Saturday, according to Adrienne Freeman, a fire spokeswoman.

In a news conference Friday, Glen Cannon, an assistant administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the 1,700 lightning-sparked fires across the state were “unprecedented in size and number.” About 300 are still uncontained, with some burning in areas so remote that they are not being fought.

To bolster the exhausted crews, officials have called in firefighters from other states and even other countries.

More than 10,000 firefighters from 47 states are battling California blazes, according to Jeremy Hamilton, a fire spokesman for the Big Sur blaze who was called in from Pennsylvania on July 3.

Hamilton said foreign firefighters were being requested to help out with large blazes burning in at least 10 states.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called up an additional 2,000 National Guard troops for duty on the front lines in California.

Near Goleta, where a 9,443-acre fire had threatened homes earlier this week, the blaze was 85% contained by Saturday evening. Crews there worked “mop-up” on flare-ups of chaparral in mostly unpopulated areas, and officials said the fire could be completely contained as soon as Wednesday.

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teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

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Times staff writers Eric Bailey and Steve Chawkins contributed to this report.