AVALON, Calif. (AP) – Residents have started returning to this picturesque town off the Southern California coast after firefighters and favorable weather conditions halted a wildfire’s advance into Catalina Island’s most populated area.

The island remained quiet Friday as nearly 4,000 evacuated residents began heading back to inspect their homes and apartments and reopen businesses that largely cater to tourists.

“I thought it would be a melted ball of plastic,” said Jim Gilligan, who reached his workplace, Dave Zeller Construction, on a golf cart. He was pleasantly surprised to find the building still standing – especially with charred ground 30 feet from the door.

Visitors were still being told to stay away. An estimated 10,000 tourists take ferries from the mainland to the island each day to lounge on the beach, play golf or take inland tours.

Elsewhere, smoke from a mammoth wildfire closed sections of two major highways Saturday morning.

About 700 firefighters were fighting the Catalina blaze, which started Thursday afternoon and burned about 4,200 acres – about 6 of the island’s 76 squares miles. Containment was estimated at 35 percent.

They were aided by a night with temperatures in the 50s and humidity higher than 70 percent – far different from the gusty, dry conditions of the fire’s first day.

Avalon Fire Chief Steven Hoefs said the cause of the fire remained under investigation but it appeared to have been sparked as contractors worked on antennas at a radio station in the island’s interior.

Only one home and six industrial businesses burned and no one was seriously injured, giving firefighters their latest in a string of victories.

About 50 miles away on the mainland, crews just days earlier beat back flames in Los Angeles’ sprawling Griffith Park that singed a neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes. That was the third menacing fire in the Hollywood Hills this spring, one of the driest rainy seasons on record. Just 2 inches have fallen on Catalina this year.

Environmentalists said it was too early to tell how the Catalina blaze affected the island’s ecosystem, home to rare animal and plant life, including the Catalina Island fox.

But four bald eaglets that hatched earlier this year without human help were unharmed, said Bob Rhein, a spokesman for the Catalina Island Conservancy, which owns most of the island. The birds are a milestone in the reintroduction of the species, which was wiped out on the island decades ago by chemical contamination.

Avalon Mayor Robert Kennedy credited the firefighting success to quick-arriving reinforcements from the mainland and training that included dry runs with military hovercraft and helicopter drops.

Across the country, firefighters battled a wildfire in Georgia and northern Florida that had burned 179,940 acres – or 281 square miles – since lightning ignited it a week ago.

Near the fire, Florida officials closed a 35-mile stretch of Interstate 75 from the Georgia-Florida state line to Lake City, Fla., as well as a 40-mile stretch of I-10 Saturday morning.

“It’s smoke and fog right now, but the fire is not far,” said Bill Hamilton of the joint fire information center. He said he expected the road closure to be in effect for at least several hours.

Several accidents have occurred on the two highways and that area roads are at near-zero visibility, emergency management officials said. A multi-car accident occurred on the interchange between the two highways northwest of Lake City, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman said. It was unclear if there were any injuries.

>The fire, which started in the middle of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, took just six days to grow larger than a separate wildfire that has burned 116,480 acres of Georgia forest and swampland in more than three weeks.

In Georgia, the fire posed a potential threat to the town of Fargo, where 380 people live about eight miles west of the Okefenokee Swamp. Occupants of about 15 homes in a subdivision were urged to leave as a precaution because of the smoke and ash.

Residents evacuated late Thursday from about 600 homes in northern Columbia County, Fla., were still unable to return home Saturday morning, said Jim Harrell, of the Florida Division of Forestry.

To the north, a wildfire grew to nearly 86 square miles in northeastern Minnesota and across the border into Canada, cutting power lines to many resorts and lake homes. Dozens of houses and cabins have burned, and about 300 people had checked in at an evacuation center.

The fire, fed by drought-parched forest, has destroyed 134 structures, including 62 houses and cabins. Crews on Friday held the fire around most of its perimeter, and favorable weather was predicted for Saturday.

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Associated Press writers Jeff Wilson and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, Peter Prengaman in Long Beach, Andrew Glazer in Avalon, Russ Bynum in Folkston, Ga., and Amy Forliti in Grand Marais, Minn., contributed to this report.