Firefighters gained ground Tuesday on a blaze in the foothills near Yosemite National Park, allowing some of the 1,000 people who fled the flames to return to their homes.

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Nearly 1 square mile in Madera County had been scorched by the Junction Fire, revising earlier estimates that it had spanned about twice as much ground, state fire officials said.

Crews contained 30 percent of the fire, aided by humidity and calmer winds. Additional firefighters had been brought in to attack the blaze fueled a day earlier by gusty winds and dry brush.

"We're not seeing the fire expand like we thought," Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said Tuesday.

The blaze that destroyed eight structures did not affect Yosemite National Park, and the road leading visitors to the park reopened Tuesday. It once threatened about 500 homes, but the risk has been minimized, officials say.

On Monday night, evacuation orders were sent to about 13,000 phone numbers in central California as sheriff John Anderson declared a state of emergency in Madera County. 

Those phone calls went to homes and businesses, and it was unclear how many people were included in the evacuation orders, according to sheriff's spokesperson Erica Stuart.

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Four hotels in the community of Oakhurst about 16 miles away from an entrance to Yosemite were evacuated and Tuesday classes have been canceled for most of the Yosemite Unified School District.

Oakhurst was smoky, and businesses downtown were closed as the fire burned about a mile away. Flames were not visible from the downtown area as they moved away from town toward a nearby reservoir and resort community, state fire spokesman Chris Christopherson said.

Wes Qualls, 50, was visiting Yosemite from Katy, Texas, with his wife and 9-year-old son, but they were cut off from their motel in Oakhurst by the fire. They found a room for the night in a nearby town but planned to cut the trip short.

"I was one of the lucky ones," he said. "Some people spent the night in their cars."

State Route 41 toward Yosemite was closed down in the area and travelers would need to use different routes into the park, authorities said.

Meanwhile, an out-of-control blaze that began Monday some 50 miles northeast of Bakersfield surged to nearly 5 square miles, or 3,195 acres.

"It's cranking," U.S. Forest Service Spokeswoman Cindy Thill told the Bakersfield Californian.

Weather conditions in the area are expected to improve later this week, which should aid firefighters who are battling the blaze. 

"Highs reached the mid-90s Monday afternoon with low relative humidity around 15 percent," said weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen. "On a positive note, winds are relatively light and expected to stay that way over the next several days. Slightly cooler temperatures and higher humidity, which are also positives for firefighters, are forecast Tuesday and Wednesday."

Wiltgen said the National Weather Service Doppler radar based in Hanford, California, detected smoke plumes from the fire at least 10,000 feet above ground level in the Oakhurst area.

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The fire burning near Lake Isabella in Kern County brought recommended evacuation orders for about 200 homes in several neighborhoods, the U.S. Forest Service said. A Red Cross evacuation center was set up at Kern Valley High School in Lake Isabella.

Some structures burned, but it wasn't immediately clear how many or if any were homes, Thill said. There was no containment of the fire Tuesday afternoon.

More than 450 firefighters with air support were battling the flames in steep terrain amid low humidity and high temperatures.

Northeast of Los Angeles, crews made quick work of a 274-acre wildfire that forced the evacuation of 200 people from a campground and recreational areas. The blaze that broke out Sunday above the foothill community of Glendora was mostly contained Tuesday and largely reduced to smoking embers.Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Yosemite National Park