COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. â€" Melted bowling balls in the front yard were among the strange sights that greeted C.J. Moore upon her return Sunday to her two-story home, reduced to ashes by the worst wildfire in Colorado history.
"You wouldn't think bowling balls would melt," she said by phone from her Mountain Shadows neighborhood, where she was among residents allowed to visit areas most affected by the fire.
More than a week after it began June 23, the Waldo Canyon fire was still being attacked by about 1,500 firefighters. Crews working grueling shifts through the hot weekend made progress against the 26-square-mile blaze, and authorities said they were confident they finally had built good fire lines in many areas to stop the spread of the flames.
So far, the blaze, now 45% contained, has damaged or destroyed nearly 350 homes.
In Colorado Springs, a line of cars a mile long queued up at a middle school, 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 hope," Moore said.
Not far away, Bill Simmons and his wife , Debbie Byes, returned to their three-level stucco home and found no damage â€" just 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."
Authorities said they would lift more evacuation orders Sunday night, bringing the total number of people who remained blocked from their homes down to 3,000 from more than 30,000 at the peak of the fire.
Authorities are still trying to determine the cause of the blaze, which so far has cost $8.8 million to battle.
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