COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Melted bowling balls in the front yard were among the strange sights that met C.J. Moore upon her return Sunday to her two-story home, now reduced to ashes by the worst wildfire in Colorado history.
"Which is just hysterical. You wouldn't think bowling balls would melt," she told the Associated Press by phone from the scene in her Mountain Shadows neighborhood.
Moore was one of many residents allowed temporary visits to the most devastated of the area's neighborhoods. Almost 350 homes burned to the ground last week in the Waldo Canyon fire, one of many still raging across the West.
A line of cars a mile long queued up at a middle school checkpoint, where police checked the identification of returning residents and handed them water bottles.
While searching for her great-grandmother's cast-iron skillets, Moore marveled at the juxtaposition of what burned and what hadn't. The bowling balls had been garden decorations.
"To find my mail in my mailbox, unscathed. It's just unreal. Unreal," she said. "Bird baths are fine. Some of the foliage is fine."
Three neighbors' homes were unscathed. Only concrete remained of other homes, including hers. Cars were burned to nothing but charred metal.
"Good lord! I've never seen anything like this. And thank God there was nobody there. Thank God there were no people here. There would have been no been no hope," Moore said.
Not far away, Bill Simmons and his wife, Debbie Byes, returned to their tri-level, passive-solar stucco home and found no damage - just some ashes in the driveway.
"The water and electric's back on. You know, we're good to go. We're feeling pretty happy about it at the moment," Simmons said by phone. "We're feeling pretty sad for our neighbors and pretty lucky for ourselves. It's been a real sobering experience."
About 10,000 people remain evacuated, down from more than 30,000 at the peak of the fire, but authorities said Sunday morning they hoped to lift more evacuation orders later in the day.
The 26-square-mile fire, one of many burning across the West, was 45 percent contained as of Sunday morning.
Rich Harvey, incident commander for Waldo Canyon, said crews continue to make good progress.
"We're cautiously optimistic," he said Sunday morning. "We still remain focused on things that could go wrong."
About 1,500 personnel were fighting the Waldo Canyon fire, and authorities said they were confident they had built good fire lines in many areas to stop flames from spreading.
Authorities are still trying to determine the cause of the fire that broke out on June 23, and which so far has cost $8.8 million to battle. Dangerous conditions had kept them from beginning their inquiry, but investigators were able to start their work on Saturday.
Two bodies were found in the ruins of one house, one 346 destroyed in this city 60 miles south of Denver. The victims' names haven't been released.
More than 150 National Guard soldiers and airmen helped Colorado Springs police staff roadblocks and patrol streets.
A "bear invasion" confronted a few mountain enclaves west of Colorado Springs. The scent of trash had enticed black bears pushed out of their usual forest habitat by fire.
People who left in a hurry didn't take typical precautions to secure household trash against wildlife, said El Paso County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer.
"So that's become an attraction for the bears," Kramer said.
State game officials were trying to shoo the bears out, he said, and dumpsters were stationed to help volunteers and returning homeowners throw stuff out. Kramer didn't know how many bears were causing problems.
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