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.
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 (4,047 hectares) 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….