As fires burned across the western United States, firefighters worked through the night to save a Bavarian-themed resort town in Washington state.
This is the fire season in the western US, a time when high temperatures, winds and an absence of rain can combine to create dangerous conditions.
With the danger season usually lasting until late September, this year's fires have been pervasive.
As of Monday, 400,000 acres were burning in nine states. Temperatures and wind, however, began to drop in the 6,500-acre Washington fire, allowing firefighters to focus on containment for the first time since the Icicle complex's 13 fires began with a flurry of lightning strikes more than a week ago.
"It's a good time to fight a fire," a Wenatchee National Forest spokesman, Mr Greg Thayer, told the Associated Press.
"But all it takes is for one of these fires to get in some fuel and get some wind and it's cooking again."
The fire has forced the evacuation of 50 homes but none have been destroyed so far. Nine homes have been lost in the past week to the state's largest fire at the 52,100-acre Virginia Lakes complex on the Colville Indian Reservation.
More than two dozen homes in the path of the 15,000-acre Goodnoe fire had been evacuated since that blaze started on Friday.
Acreage totals jumped when wind kicked up on Saturday, with gusts up to 60 m.p.h. on the state's arid east side.
But winds were expected to be light and variable yesterday, with sustained winds of 10-15 m.p.h. expected on ridgetops and gusts up to 20 m.p.h. Rain was forecast for today, possibly to last three or four days.
In Oregon, firefighters contained two of the state's major wildfire clusters on Saturday - the 127,552-acre Lakeview complex and the 8,884-acre Baker complex - leaving nine active fires on over 105,000 acres.
Oregonians living near the 27,725-acre Monument wildfire, accustomed to smoke and ash outside their windows, welcomed the familiar view of mountains on Sunday morning.
Weaker winds and lower temperatures on Saturday allowed firefighters to scrape and burn a perimeter around Monument, Oregon, keeping the fire from homes in the area. Nevada still had the most acreage involved in active fires - over 107,000 acres in total.
On ABC television's This Morning programme, the Governor of Oregon, Mr John Kitzhaber, urged Congress and President Bush to take more aggressive steps over the next 10 years to improve the health of north-west forests.
Instead of making emergency appropriations after massive fires - $1.6 billion was appropriated to address last summer's western blazes - he recommended long-term investments to "save the country billions of dollars, and I would say hundreds of lives over time". He recommended thinning trees, prescribed burns and "some repairing and restoration" to restore forest health.