California evacuees are allowed to return to homes as wildfire nearly contained

Firefighters in the US state of California have made more progress in fighting against a massive wildfire, allowing hundreds of evacuees to return to their neighborhoods where they find their homes devastated.

According to state fire officials, around 800 people were allowed to return to their homes in Lake County on Thursday. The number would increase in the next 24 hours.

The so-called Rocky Fire has forced more than 13,000 people to evacuate the burning areas in eight days.

Some of them who return to homes, however, find nothing.

“All of it is gone, it’s so surreal,” said one of the evacuees, Layna Rivas, after she found her home in Clearlake Oaks had burned to the ground.

“It looked like a bomb went off everywhere, it’s all black,” she explained.