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CNN Live Saturday
Wildfires Continue To Ravage Western States
Aired August 18, 2001 - 15:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Acres and acres of charred earth keeps us in the west, as exhausted firefighters continue battling frustrating weather conditions and horrific wildfires. Utah and New Mexico are now on the list of fire-ravaged states, with Washington and Oregon enduring the worst of it.
Blazes, like this one that we'll show you in Oregon, have driven thousands of residents from their homes. And strong winds, coupled with dry winds, giving the fires even more life.
Just to give you a little perspective, here's how it looked in Idaho earlier, and even from these pictures that we're showing you it's gotten much worse since.
Someone who's been keeping track of the situation in Idaho, as well as the other nine states where fires are raging, is Davida Carnahan with the National Interagency Fire Center. She joins us now from Boise, Idaho, by phone.
Davida, where is it the worst right now?
DAVIDA CARNAHAN: Right now Washington state is definitely getting the worst of it, fire activity. The winds and the weather conditions are fanning fuels in very dry, dry conditions.
KELLEY: How about the acreage there?
CARNAHAN: I don't have the breakdown of acreage in Washington state, but I can tell you that of the 30 active fires that we are tracking right now there are 504,044 acres.
KELLEY: How many people are threatened? How many homes? Do you have that number at all?
CARNAHAN: There have been approximately 138 homes on the eastern slope of the Cascades in Washington that have been evacuated.
KELLEY: OK. We have on our screen there, if people didn't get a chance to see it, some of the firefighting equipment that's going into fight here with planes, and water tanks, and also that there are 5,000 firefighter in Washington and Oregon alone.
Tell us about the marines and the army troops that are coming in to try and help relieve some of those exhausted firefighters. CARNAHAN: Beginning on Thursday, we will have army troops trained from the Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Washington. They will actually be on the fire line beginning on Thursday. We also have four military C130s that arrived her in Boise yesterday, and they will be flying out probably beginning tomorrow, to drop loads of retardant to slow the advance of the fire.
KELLEY: And one of the reasons that the marines and army certainly are coming in, the troops coming in, the college kids, I read, that there are a number of college kids who are firefighters and they've got to go back to school.
CARNAHAN: That's true. As a matter of fact, some schools have been extending registration deadlines for those firefighters.
KELLEY: Tell us what the shifts are like for those firefighters and what it's like out there on the lines.
CARNAHAN: Again, it's very hot, it's very dry. The wind conditions can cause blow ups, contribute to erratic fire behavior.
KELLEY: All right. Davida Carnahan who's with the National Interagency Fire Center. Thanks for bringing us the update on that. We sure appreciate it.
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