Battle against monster wildfire in France boosted by improving weather

Ege-Cap Ferret, France — French authorities gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees forced out by a monster wildfire to go back to their homes in southwest France, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning a corner in their battle against the flames that have burned an area four times the size of Paris.

The authorized returns announced Thursday covered nine localities that had been evacuated. In all, more than 220,000 people were forced to flee their homes since last week.

Higher humidity, cooler temperatures and some drizzle raised hopes that Thursday could be a decisive step on the way to vanquishing the fire.

The regional prefecture said returning evacuees must keep their phones on for evacuation alerts and should be packed and ready in case they need to leave again.

Nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 people initially ordered to evacuate have now been allowed to go home. Some 60,000 people who had been evacuated from three suburbs of the city of Bordeaux, to the east, were given the go-ahead to return on Tuesday.

Authorities also said a highway that has been closed since the weekend would reopen Thursday afternoon, clearing a major artery for road traffic with Spain and vacationers as France enters its peak August holiday period.

But CBS News correspondent Ramy Inocencio says nearly 80,000 people remain displaced from their homes across all of southern France, and the fire is not out.

Among those forced to flee in recent days were George and Amal Clooney, who said they had fled their home in the southwest of France.

Local officials reported a "rather calm" night, with the fire not growing beyond the roughly 162 square miles already affected. Fire crews remained at "total mobilization," with 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft.

But the scale of the disaster has demanded even more help on the ground, and CBS News' Ramy Inocencio spent time Wednesday with residents who have stepped up to try and tackle every little fire, leaving firefighters to battle the biggest blazes.

Nils Seval is a surf instructor, but this week he's been spraying down flareups that emerge from blazes still smoldering underground even in areas where big flames have been extinguished.

"The ground is smoking, because fires go everywhere," he told CBS News. "Underground, sometimes like one meter [three feet] underground."

Seval and his fellow volunteers have been at it since last week, and they haven't given up yet.

He said it was simply too much for the fire crews to tackle on their own, and he admits it has taken a toll, leaving him and other voluntee