"The battle to tame California's fiercest wildfire this year, the big Rocky blaze north of Napa Valley wine country, neared a turning point on Thursday as ground crews fighting the flames for an eighth day steadily extended their control lines.

The containment level for the blaze, a measure of how much of its perimeter has been firmly enclosed within fire breaks hacked through unburned vegetation, rose to 45 percent on Thursday evening - more than double what it was two days earlier.

Fire crews had made significant headway since Tuesday after triple-digit temperatures abated and humidity rose."

Steve Gorman reports for Reuters August 6, 2015. [2]