HEBER-OVERGAARD, Ariz. — When Lester Wagner returned to the ash-covered lot where his home once stood, all he found intact were a pair of black bear figurines and an American flag that continued to wave amid the debris.
"I knew there wasn't much left but ashes," said Wagner, who had previously seen the damage on television. "But it still hurts."
Wagner was among the last wave of Arizona's 30,000 fire evacuees to go home Wednesday, and like so many of their neighbors in Heber-Overgaard, they found nothing but remnants of their former life.
Cloyde Burkhead used a shovel to sift through the ashes of his burned-out shed and came across a small dog figurine, one of several in his collection.
"Unfortunately the insurance said it won't cover collectibles or antiques and that's most of what we had," said Marilyn Burkhead, who along with her husband spends summers in this mountain community. "But they're just things. We're safe and we have another home to go to."
Thousands of people living in the eastern Arizona mountains who had fled the largest wildfire in state history had already gone back to their homes. But until Wednesday, 3,500 to 4,000 people from Heber-Overgaard, Aripine and Forest Lakes were still waiting to return.
Cheers erupted at an evacuee center in nearby Payson when they heard the evacuation order had been lifted in those communities.
"We are going home!" shouted fire information officer Tim Grier, who lives in the area.
The fire has charred 469,320 acres of pine forest in eastern Arizona's White Mountains. The blaze was 85 percent contained by Wednesday night and was expected to be fully contained by Sunday.
About half of the more than 400 homes destroyed in the wildfire were in Heber-Overgaard. Some homes there were reduced to twisted wreckage while many of those that survived were surrounded by blackened trees.
Kathie and Mark Cullinane, who have lived in the town since 1995, were among the lucky ones.
Their house smelled of rotting food because the power had been off in the days they were gone. Ash covered the lawn and elk had eaten their plants. But their home was intact.
"Now that we're back, we just want people to know that the Heber-Overgaard area is still alive and well," Kathie Cullinane said. "We are not wiped out."
They did get a shock as they looked around the neighborhood. Where a friend's three-story log cabin once stood, a towering stone chimney was virtually all that survived.
"My God, are we lucky," Cullinane said.
Leonard Gregg, a part-time firefighter, pleaded innocent Wednesday to a charge that he started a fire that devastated the region as it merged with another to form the monster blaze. Court documents allege that Gregg, 29, told an investigator he set the fire so he could get work on a fire crew.
U.S. Magistrate Stephen Verkamp denied Gregg bond, saying he had gotten reports that Gregg could be suicidal and that anyone caring for him might face reprisals from angry community members.
Gregg is scheduled to go on trial Sept. 3.
In other wildfire developments in the West:
— A firefighter who died while working on a 73,132-acre wildfire near Durango, Colo., was killed by a falling tree, fire officials said Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicated Allan Wyatt was looking in a different direction when the tree fell on him Tuesday.
— In Denver, a federal judge delayed the Aug. 26 trial of Terry Barton, the former Forest Service employee charged with starting the largest wildfire in Colorado history. No new trial date was set. The fire, which destroyed 133 homes, was declared fully contained after blackening 137,760 acres.
— A fire in the Black Hills of South Dakota was 35 percent contained after burning 9,000 acres. Thousands of residents and tourists evacuated from the historic town of Deadwood were allowed to return, but people who fled nearby Lead were not yet allowed to go back to their homes.
— A wind-driven blaze consumed at least 200 acres of pine and fir and sent a towering plume of smoke over the south end of Lake Tahoe on the California and Nevada border. Some 200 people were urged to evacuate a mountain neighborhood and dozens of tourists were shuttled off a peak on a ski resort gondola.
— Heavy rain aided firefighters battling a 17,900-acre fire in southeast Wyoming, the largest of several burning in the state. Containment jumped from 20 percent to 60 percent.