Firefighters struggled Tuesday night to contain wind-whipped flames that scorched hundreds of acres in Griffith Park, forced the evacuation of some of Los Angeles' best-known landmarks and raced toward hillside homes in Los Feliz, prompting a hasty evacuation...

The Observatory, Greek Theatre, Los Angeles Zoo, Travel Town and Museum of the American West, as well as nearby golf courses, a magnet school and boys camp were evacuated Tuesday afternoon as firefighters dealt with erratic winds and bone-dry brush that has received less than 4 inches of rain in the last year.

With a veil of smoke visible in the hills, zoo staffers said Wednesday that animals were calm and seemingly unbothered by the faint smell of smoke wafting on the breeze...."Even along the edges" of the zoo, principal keeper Jeff Briscoe said, "the animals seem oblivious." Briscoe, who stayed at the zoo until 3 a.m. Wednesday, checked on the zoo's two high-profile elephants through the night. "They're fine. They're not even aware of it," he said.

There was one thing unusual at the zoo, however: It was closed to the public, as were all access roads. So with the zoo devoid of noisy patrons and screaming children, animals luxuriated in the quiet.

A chimpanzee toting an onion strolled across its exhibit, past a rushing waterfall that drowned out the thud-thud-thud of a helicopter overhead. A bachelor herd of Nubian ibexes monitored the zoo scene from a high rock ledge while two gerenuks in another exhibit propped their slender legs up on a tree to browse... Billy, the zoo's bull elephant, flipped a trunkful of dirt over his head onto his back to cool himself.

The 817-acre Griffith Park fire has been largely extinguished but the blaze is not expected to be fully contained until tonight, and the city's largest park and its major attractions -- including the zoo and observatory -- remained closed today, officials said.

Firefighters, aided by a cool and damp marine layer, have contained about 75% of the blaze, Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Melissa Kelley said this morning. Full containment, in the form of a 100-foot wide perimeter, is expected by about 6 p.m. today.

Fire investigators remained interested in a man who was found with burns on a park golf course as the possible source of the fire, authorities said. But police Sgt. Lee Sands said the department was finished questioning the man and did not consider him a "person of interest."

The man, in his early 20s, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his upper torso. David Schaefer, a Fire Department paramedic who treated him, said the man told him he fell asleep while smoking a cigarette and woke up with his shirt on fire.

"At this point there's no indication that it was anything but an accident," said Battalion Chief John Miller, who oversees arson investigations.