Good morning.

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“We came here for the last few days with sometimes worsening news. We are pleased to be here with better news today.”

The sun was setting as Mayor Eric M. Garcetti of Los Angeles offered that report Thursday night, opening the second briefing of his day. The smell of smoke still wafted in the air, and he was talking in a park filled with firefighters, emergency vehicles, police officers and camera crews. But the San Fernando Valley sky, which two days ago had been thick with smoke, was mostly clear and the hills were no longer orange with fire.

Other parts of California were not faring so well — fires were churning through San Diego and Ventura. And the good news came with what has become familiarly disturbingly caveats: Winds remain perilously high, there is not a drop of rain in the forecast, so conditions could always turn bad.

But Mr. Garcetti was finally delivering some welcome news to a city put on edge not only by the fires but a countywide emergency alert that buzzed on phones across the region Wednesday night. “This is a fire that is burning much less intensely,” Mr. Garcetti said.