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CNN Live Today

Wildfires Burn in Locations Throughout U.S.

Aired June 03, 2002 - 13:46   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Summer wildfire season is heating up across the country today. One fire filled the sky above Ocean County, New Jersey with heavy smoke, and it's charred about 1,300 acres and destroyed one home. Now at last report, the fire was about 80 percent contained.

Across the country in southern California, 2,500 acres in the Los Padres National Forest have also gone up in flames. Crews are battling two other major blazes in the region.

And in Colorado, a wind-whipped fire west of Canon City has destroyed at least 20 homes, and it's threatening 200 others.

For the latest details, we're joined now on the telephone by Janelle Smith. She's a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Janelle, as you look across the landscape here, you know, it seems awfully early in the fire season to be seeing so much activity.

JANELLE SMITH, NATIONAL INTERAGENCY FIRE CENTER: It certainly is rare to have this widespread activity this early in the season.

LIN: So what's the worst of it that you're seeing? Is it Colorado right now?

SMITH: Right now, as of today, yes, Colorado is experiencing some of the most extreme fire activity. They are expected to get a little bit of relief tomorrow, however, with some cloud cover and some scattered showers. So we're really hoping that that helps out the firefighters there tomorrow.

LIN: And what about evacuations? Anything like that going on there?

SMITH: The last report that we received is there were evacuations of some areas near the Iron Mountain fire, which is by West Cliff, Colorado, in the Trinidad area, as well.

So we do hope that we can get those residents back to their homes as soon as possible, however.

LIN: Twenty-five hundred acres in the Los Padres National Forest. Is most of that just wilderness area, or are there homes there too?

SMITH: From what we see, it is a lot of forest area, although there is a major highway that has been closed due to the activity on either side of that highway.

LIN: You know, the National Forest Service for the last several years has been working on different ways of fire control, including more controlled burns. But that became a problem, I think, just a year or two ago when controlled burns got out of control. What is the latest on fire containment for this fire season?

SMITH: Well certainly, you know, the firefighters work to contain fires as quickly as possible. What we are experiencing right now, however, is pretty extreme drought conditions in many areas. So when a fire does ignite in some of those areas, it burns very rapidly and it is difficult to contain.

LIN: And not only burning more rapidly, but burning hotter because of the density of some of these forests, right?

SMITH: Certainly some areas have an unnatural buildup of fuel and vegetation that, when a fire hits, it does burn, yes, very hot, very intensely. A prescribed fire can help to reduce that intensity by taking back or taking away some of that fuel loading, or that extreme vegetation load.

LIN: Well, Janelle, are we going to see another fire season here where more than 1 million acres across, you know, almost a dozen states is going to occur? That seems to be so commonplace now.

SMITH: Well, certainly we are looking at a pace kind of like the year of 2000. Already 1.2 million acres have burned. And I definitely can see that we're going to see this kind of activity persist as the summer months heat up and dry out.

LIN: Well, that's not good news; but a good warning for people just to make sure that they watch their ashes and cigarettes when they're out camping.

SMITH: That's a great point. We're really encouraging people who go out into the wild lands and to the public areas to be very careful with their campfires. And some areas, they may even have fire restrictions. So they may not be able to build those fires at all.

LIN: There you go. All right, Janelle Smith, spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, Idaho. Thanks so much.

SMITH: Thank you.

LIN: Let's hope the season does calm down a bit.

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