Campers looking for a site clogged the entrance to Gulf State Park on Friday afternoon.

Visitors were hoping to spend a relaxing weekend at the beachside campground. Up the main campground road a fair piece, three guys who haven't had much time to relax of late were enjoying the air-conditioned comfort of a camping trailer, but it's not your normal camper.

On it's side was emblazoned "Gulf Shores Fire and Rescue." Inside were Gulf Shores Fire Chief Hartley Brokenshaw, Deputy Chief Keith Martin and Orange Beach Fire Chief Forney Howard, all looking more relaxed than they have been since a wildfire broke out in the park on Saturday and threatened both towns.

The guys may have looked relaxed, but they were still talking fire, but without the urgency of previous days in their voices.

"There's one little spot, nothing major, that's still burning a little," Brokenshaw said. "All of it is still smoldering and every day it's going to get less and less (smoke). There's really no active burns going on, it's just the residual.

"They're calling it 100 percent contained and hopefully tomorrow it will be 100 percent controlled."

At the Gulf Shores end of the burned areas, monitoring will continue into next week.

 "We're going to keep having patrols through Tuesday, and that's it," he said. "We're going to have three people out here all the time during the day until 10 o'clock and then forestry is going to have crews here 24 hours a day through Tuesday.It may continue, it may stop there. As far as anything else being done to it, we're just going around the perimeters, working snags and putting stuff out there and that's it.

Howard has similar game plan for the next few days.

"We're working anything within 20 feet of those trails," he said. "When there's all these people here, you can't control 'em. We'll have four through Monday night's fireworks and then they'll go home. Somebody's going to be around the fire until Monday for sure.

Earlier on Friday, conditions surrounding the wildfire continued to improve by the minute as crews continue mopping up hot spots and monitor the fire.

"Everything is going good, we're like ants moving around over here," spokesman Jerry Smith of the Alabama Forestry Commission said Friday morning. "The smoke is dissipating some and we're thinking we're pretty good."

Howard said his crews are in the "scaling-down mode" Friday morning.

"We still have crews working the fire," Howard said Friday morning. "It's still a dangerous situation that we will continue to monitor. They're working on a small portion of the burn, fuel that didn't burn. They might try to get it done. It's about a three- to five-acres.

"We're in a scaling-down process. Some state crews are leaving this afternoon and some are working all day today and leaving tomorrow."

The Orange Beach end of the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail has been reopened.

The city of Orange Beach will be enforcing a no-tolerance policy on fireworks during the holiday weekend.

Gulf Shores Fire Chief Hartley Brokenshaw was at the Gulf Shores command post Friday morning and said his crews were mainly just doing mop-up duty and looking for hot spots.

 A successful back burn Thursday afternoon, fueled again by a favorable wind, signalled the beginning of the end for the wildfire.Estimates are that nearly 1,000 acres of the 6,200-acre park have burned. But if this last effort to eliminate fuel for the fire is successful, the end will certainly be in sight.

"They said what they wanted to burn was gonna burn," Howard said. "There was a section yesterday that didn't burn, but with this west wind, it's coming right into it."

A later shift bringing the wind from the south caused some anxious moments in the Beaver Creek and Azalea Court subdivisions directly north of the back burns.

"When the wind shifted to come out of the southeast, it really caught a head of steam, that's when it got our attention," Battalion Chief Jeff Smith said from his post in the command post at the Orange Beach Sportsplex."The wind shifted and started blowing a good bit of embers and stuff to the north. The helicopter thought he saw some spot fires north of Gulf Oak Ridge (trail). I don't think they found any. Based on his information and how hot the fire was burning, they requested we place apparatus up around Beaver Creek and Azalea subdivisions."

Howard said his department is ready if any breaches reach northward across the ridge toward those two subdivisions.

"I went up on the ridge a while ago and walked down in there and I thought I could hear it crackle about 50 yards away or so," Howard said. "It has not breached. We've probably got five brush trucks on the ridge, one tractor on the ridge, one tractor at Stuckey Road and another one in the woods. So we're ready. But hopefully we won't need it.

"There was a rumor that Beaver evacuating, but we went back in there and told the guys we'd be back in another hour. That burn should be complete in about another hour. We are going to keep our engines in Beaver and Azalea for another hour. It's kinda bad down that way with smoke across the road."

Thursday also brought news of more help from the state.

"Art Faulkner, director of homeland security for the state told the incident commander (Stanley Anderson) whatever he needed to keep, keep it. That includes the helicopter. We're going to keep that one more day. He said whatever he needed to keep as long as he needed and he'd pass that along to the governor."

Overnight Wednesday, crews in Orange Beach had a little respite. Battalion Chief Wesley McConnell was just a bit bleary-eyed on Thursday morning as he was rustled out of his bunk just before 6 a.m.

"They got the forestry guys riding the perimeter," McConnell said. "About 3:30 or 4 they told us to go take a nap. We’re in pretty good shape."

The overnight crew relished the break, but mop-up duty continued Wednesday night and into early Thursday morning.

"We spent the day yesterday, and early evening, doing our laps around the perimeter, hitting the hot spots," McConnell said. "Mostly working from the perimeter in to the burned part now. We’re trying to get a 20-yard buffer between where it’s burnt and where it’s not. Going 20 yards into it to see if there’s anything hot."

While smoke has been troublesome at times, the only road closed because of it is in the state park. All other roads are accessible and Kennon says they will remain so.

“Traffic has never been affected and won’t be affected,” he said. “I don’t see any issue whatsever to for anyone coming down to enjoy the Fourth.”

The governor encouraged those with travel plans for the beach for the holiday weekend to come on down.

"Local officials are working around the clock to contain this fire, and I am hopeful they will be successful,” Bentley said in a news release. “The fires have not affected the beaches of Gulf Shores or Orange Beach.

"I want to encourage people who have plans to travel to the Gulf for the upcoming holiday to continue with their vacation plans.”