COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS) -- Over 300 homes have now been destroyed in Colorado Springs, leaving residents helpless as the raging fires continue to spread. The most destructive wildfires in the state's history continue to rage forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee.

John sawyer came home from vacation in Atlanta only to move into a hotel. He and his family have been out of their home since Tuesday. He says, "It's a lot of stress and you're not sleeping well and you're not in your own house and your family is not altogether. And you try to fit in work, you know, we're trying to do normal lives, but you can't."

Sawyer is one of 32,000 people evacuated as the fire spread. Colorado Springs' mayor Steve Bach says 346 homes have burned in the fire, on 34 streets in the community.

Sawyer's house is a half-mile from the fire line. He says, "How are thousands or hundreds of families find places to live, continue their work, how will the schools function. There's a lot of questions ahead if we don't get back to our houses."

Many of those families attended a meeting Thursday night so officials could try to answer some of those questions.

Firefighters were helped Thursday by good weather and calm winds. But the fire was still just 10 percent controlled. Incident Commander Rich Harvey describes the fire as, "Obnoxious. I would say it has an obnoxious personality and I don't like it. First day this fire ran north, second day it ran sound, third day this fire ran east and fourth day it ran west and that's very unusual and hard to fight."

The Army put its soldiers to work building a fire break as helicopters conducted water drops overhead. Lt. Col. Dan Hippner says, "We're the second line of defense and we're trying to make sure that if the fire does get any further than we're trying to stop it in its tracks. So that's what we've done. We've put in about 13 kilometers of fire break today."

They have John Sawyer's thanks. He says, "I appreciate to no end all the efforts they're making to save our homes."