Dying winds allowed firefighters gain the upper hand on nearly all of the 20 Californian wildfires burning from the mountains north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border over the last five days.
Most of the 500,000 people in the largest evacuation in California's modern history are now on their way home, officials said. Some 1,600 homes have been destroyed since Sunday.
A firefighter stands in front of a fire-damaged home in San Diego, California.
Two burned bodies were found in a house in hard-hit San Diego County, bringing the death toll to at least eight. Most were elderly who died while being evacuated.
"This is a better day than any we've had since this thing started," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender said.
President George W. Bush, who declared fires a "major disaster," was due to survey the damage with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today and check on the government's response.
"It's a sad situation out there in southern California. I fully understand that the people have got a lot of anguish in their hearts and they just need to know a lot of folks care about them," Mr Bush said before leaving the White House.
He said he wanted to make sure California was receiving the help it needed to deal with the wildfires.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), criticised along with Bush for a slow response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, had 1,000 people on the ground in badly scorched San Diego County.
Though fire officials were relieved that the hot, dry Santa Ana winds driving the flames had weakened, they conceded that offshore breezes replacing them presented a danger to the area and 9,000 weary men and women fighting the flames.
The wildfires broke out during the weekend after the Santa Ana winds began to blow and have blackened nearly 800 square miles, and injured more than 60 people.
San Diego County has suffered losses in excess of $1 billion, and three of the largest fires were still burning there, mostly in the eastern, less populated part of the county.
"This is going to be a re-entry day for many of the thousands of San Diegans that are out there," said Ron Lane, head of county emergency services. "We are absolutely thrilled."
Fewer than 1,000 people spent the night at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, compared with some 10,000 on Monday and Tuesday. The good food, showers, acupuncture and massage at evacuees' disposal attracted chronically homeless street people, according to one witness.
"You see a lot of them walking around the parking lot," evacuee Jennifer Ryan said. "They know a good thing when they see it."