Firefighters this evening continued to keep flames at bay near the Orange Beach city shop, but seemed to be losing ground against a wildfire that started in Gulf Start Park on Saturday.

This evening the fire jumped Canal Road via flying embers and was burning trees on the north side of the road near Cypress Creek and the city golf course. Firefighters were also deployed near EAT restaurant and in the woods surrounding the Orange Beach Sports Complex, where fire had earlier been contained.

The state trooper helicopter was working in the area with a water bucket as the sun began tgo set..

This morning a jumper from a mostly successful back burn flared up in the Sweetwater Road and Money Bayou Road areas.

Afternoon high winds kicked up and gave the jumper new life and as of 2:30 p.m. was about a block or south of Canal Road.

"We're working the powerline around the city shop and the White property," Howard said. "We're trying to save Mr. White's equipment. There's a debris pile back there that caught fire.

"We jumped from Money Bayou and EAT restaurant and we're headed to the shop now."

Howard remained optimistic.

"Still nobody hurt, still nothing burned down," he said, before ducking back into the command post. "You can't ask for much more than that."

Help was on the way as Foley was sending a tanker truck and a brush truck to throw into the fray. Howard welcomed the extra help.

"Our guys are tired, they're wore out."

Howard said the state park was evacuated and the area of concentration for Orange Beach was north of the new sewer plant and west of Power Line Road.

This morning the largest area of the wildfire burning in Gulf State Park remained a concern, but it is on the verge of being controlled.

Damage has been minimal and no evacuations have been ordered and none are anticipated as of Sunday morning. At one point, Howard said, the fire was well east of the Sportsplex and stretched farther west toward State Park Road 2. Sunday morning the majority of the fire was contained east of the Sportsplex.

"About 2 this morning, it just kinda quit," Howard said."Right now we're pretty happy. We got a little damage to one of the boardwalks on the trail, but other than that no structures damaged, no equipment damaged and no people injured."

The day, however, won't be without challenges.

"That fire there," Howard said, pointing east from the Orange Beach Sportplex toward Gulf Shores, "the biggest one, forestry is letting it work its way slowly (west). It has a tendency to work this way (east). But its actually back burning itself and they want it to burn."

Letting that fire play itself out while  keeping it where firefighters can work it is the aim of workers on the scene.

"Today they are going to work the top side of that on what we call the ridge to keep it from coming up to the hill," Howard said. "And they are going to work that all day today. Other than that, we are pretty much set."

The bright outlook for the rest of today is likely due to a back burn ignited late last night and early this morning.

"Last night we did another back burn between one of our trail heads and the Old Cat Man Trail Road," Howard said. "Between Gulf Shores and Old Cat Man Trail.

"We've been around it about three times already this morning and we think it was successful. We've got a lot of spot fires and we've got to work today and put them out. That's no big deal, that's normal. We've got a couple of places where it crossed. One of them is over by the sewer plant and we are about to work this. We've got this fire right here that's at Sweetwater, Marine Bayou and we're working it right now."

Residents are likely to see helicopters in the skies again to day in the effort to squash the blaze.

"The helicopter is on the way," Howard said. "He's going to help us hit the hot spots.

The helicopter was sent in by the state and several fire departments and forestry officials have been battling the fire since Saturday afternoon.

"Forestry is here and they worked until 1 or 2 in the morning so they were a little late getting up," Howard said .  "They worked, probably, seven or eight hours straight in the woods yesterday. They worked their rearends off. We've got a lot of tired people this morning."

Evacuations aren't expected in any of the housing developments in the area.

"We were in Oak Ridge, we were in Beaver (Creek) and other areas all night making sure that we didn't have any embers or something fall," Howard said. "I know some people were out on their roofs with hoses."