Anxious and sad, US residents displaced by raging wildfires in southern California began returning to their devastated communities Sunday as cooler weather helped firefighters control most of the blazes.

About 10 wildfires, some of them merging in its course of destruction, have killed about 20 people, destroyed 3,400 homes and burned about 750,000 acres (about 30,000 hectares) of forest. This was the worst natural disaster in southern California, whose damage was estimated at between US$2 to 12 billion.

The cooler weather that swept across southern California since Thursday with rain, snow and nearly freezing temperatures and helped firefighters conquer the raging blazes with rapid speed.

In Upper Waterman Canyon on the edge of the San Bernardino mountains, about 80 miles (128 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, some residents returned home to survey the damages caused by a wildfire that started Oct. 25 and scorched nearly 100,000 acres (about 40,000 hectares) of forest. In the community of 66 homes and a seasonal fire station, all but eight of those homes and the fire station were destroyed.

Some firefighters were pulled from the San Bernardino mountains Sunday and began to head to home, said US Forest Service spokesman Bob Narus, although he couldn't say exactly how many.

In San Diego County, which suffered the worst damage from firestorms in the past week, firefighters were expected to begin leaving after 10 days of desperate firefighting, said California Department of Forestry spokeswoman Barb Daskoski.

More than 15,000 evacuees of the Big Bear Valley in San Bernardino County were also given the green light to return home Sunday after firefighters created a firebreak zone around the resort city, where all residents were ordered to evacuate last Thursday. 

Big Bear City Fire chief Dana Van Luven said the old fire that threatened Big Bear over the weekend was 72 percent contained Sunday. "The threat is still very real, but we are confident we can hold it off," he said.

Firefighters across the region took advantage of the weather to build firebreaks near communities that could be threatened again next week with the expected return of hot Santa Ana winds.

In San Diego County, the cedar fire -- the largest individual blaze in California history -- was 90 percent contained Sunday after burning for six days and destroyed 281,000 acre (about 112,400 hectares) of forest in northeast of San Diego.

(Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2003)