SAN DIEGO — The football stadium where thousands of displaced residents sought refuge is closing as an evacuation center, symbolic progress against wildfires menacing Southern California.

Once sheltering more than 10,000 people, Qualcomm Stadium was home to just 350 this morning. It was to close later in the day.

Across San Diego County, the region hardest hit by the firestorms that began last weekend, thousands of evacuees have been trickling back to neighborhoods stripped bare.

The lucky ones will find their homes still standing amid a blackened landscape. Others, like Robert Sanders, are not so fortunate.

The 56-year-old photographer returned to a smoldering mound that once was his rented house in the San Diego neighborhood of Rancho Bernardo.

Among the possessions he lost were his transparencies, melted inside a fire-resistant box, and a photograph of his father.

“I’ve lost my history,” Mr. Sanders said. “All the work I’ve done for the past 30 years, it’s all destroyed.”

Thousands of people lost their homes, and several fires continued burning out of control today.

One had crested Palomar Mountain and was threatening the landmark Palomar Observatory.

“I’m not sure how close it is, but evidently it’s close enough for us to be concerned about (the observatory) and the radio towers on top,” a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Fred Daskoski, said.

He said crews were clearing brush from around the observatory and lighting back burns to halt the fire’s advance. The observatory, operated by the California Institute of Technology, was home to the world’s largest telescope when it opened in 1908.

To the southeast, the Witch Fire, which already has destroyed more than 1,000 homes, was churning its way toward Julian. The town of 3,000, nestled in the rolling hills of a popular apple-growing region, was under mandatory evacuation.

Flames were about six miles away, and firefighters were concerned that west winds would accelerate the blaze uphill toward the town.

East of San Diego, firefighters also were trying to keep flames from Lake Morena, which is surrounded by hundreds of homes.

Today’s flare-ups underscored the wildfires’ continuing threat, even as crews were making rapid progress.

“Until you get a control line around each and every individual fire, there’s a potential of them blowing out anywhere,” Mr. Daskoski said.

In all, fires have raced across 490,000 acres — or 765 square miles. They were fanned early in the week by Santa Ana winds that produced gusts topping 100 mph.

Of the 1,800 homes lost so far, 80 percent were in San Diego County. The property damage there alone surpassed $1 billion.

Still unsettled is whether the San Diego Chargers will play their home game against the Houston Texans at Qualcomm on Sunday. Mayor Jerry Sanders said the stadium should be ready but indicated the decision will be made by the NFL and the team.

Officials have opened assistance centers where displaced residents can get help with insurance, rebuilding and even mental health counseling.

“The challenge now is starting to rebuild and getting them the resources they need to do that,” a San Diego County spokeswoman, Lesley Kirk, said today. “The county and city of San Diego are very committed to helping these people.”

A show of the federal government’s support came yesterday when President Bush toured the area with Governor Schwarzenegger. Mr. Bush pledged the government’s cooperation.

“We want the people to know there’s a better day ahead — that today your life may look dismal, but tomorrow life’s going to be better,” he said.

As the governor and president witnessed the devastation, the state came under criticism for failing to deploy sufficient aerial support in the wildfires’ crucial first hours.