Western wildfires easing up

BOISE, Idaho (CNN) -- Firefighters, weary from long days of battling raging wildfires across several Western states, are finally getting some time off as they begin to gain the upper hand on blazes that have scorched thousands of acres.

"Many firefighters will get at least a couple of days to go home and pay the mortgage and do the laundry before they're called up for more fires," National Fire Information Center spokesman Arnold Hartigan said Wednesday.

More than 29,000 firefighters are working on 14-day rotations to try to control a total of 32 large fires that are burning in nine states: California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington. Some 331,000 acres have been blackened by those blazes.

One battalion of soldier-firefighters from Fort Lewis, Washington, is expected to be deployed this week at the Virginia Lake fire in Washington that has consumed more than 73,000 acres and is only 30 percent contained.

RESOURCES Picture Show: Images from Western wildfires

"They will follow the fire line and put out any embers outside the fire line," Hartigan said. "When they get used to the routine -- because it is hard and long physical labor -- then they'll move into more complex situations as they go along."

Because the firefighters have had such success in controlling the ongoing fires, the NFIC has canceled a request for a second battalion of troops to be deployed.

That doesn't mean the crisis is over, however.

"We've still got a long way to go," Hartigan said.

Officials are hoping the cooler and potentially wetter weather will help them gain control of more fires this week. Forecasters predict temperatures will begin to climb again by the weekend, making containment more difficult.

High winds are expected with a storm front currently passing through California, Nevada and Wyoming.

"The good news is the storm front passing through doesn't appear to have too much dry lightning," said Hartigan. "That works in our favor, but the winds won't help existing fires."

Many of the current fires were sparked by dry lightning, including several in California where six fires are burning more than 23,000 acres.

Homes were evacuated as the so-called Creek Fire consumed over 11,000 acres two miles north of Coulterville, California. Communities further west in Calaveras County in north-central California were affected by another blaze called the Leonard Fire, for which evacuations have also been ordered. That fire has burned about 3,800 acres.

As the summer begins to draw to a close, however, and people try to cram in that last-minute vacation, Hartigan urges people to be careful with fire.

"Just because it's cooler and we're getting a handle on fires doesn't mean that the danger's not still there," he said.