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CNN Live Today
In Colorado, Fire Crews Telling More Residents to Get Ready to Run
Aired June 18, 2002 - 11:00 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Up first this hour on CNN, the Colorado fire. The fire crews out there are telling more residents to get ready to run this morning. Flames are closing in on new towns, and the weather just is not helping things at all.
Our Rusty Dornin has been watching this fast-moving story in Castle Rock, Colorado. She checks in now live -- Rusty.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, you know weather really is the determining factor in a fire like this, and especially the winds and the humidity. Humidity has been very low the last two days. The temperatures are up. And the wind really kicked up yesterday afternoon and blew the fire back over the fire lines, forcing three communities to evacuate.
And we're here with CNN's Jason Bellini, who was there when people were actually having to pack up their belongings and take off. Was there a sense of urgency that they felt they had to get out of there?
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well there certainly was, because they really didn't have much forewarning. They saw this very ominous dark cloud of smoke behind them. But they've been hearing so much good news in the days prior that I don't think that they really wanted to believe they were going to have to be evacuated. They think things were getting better.
But they did follow their orders, and around 100 people evacuated yesterday afternoon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BELLINI (voice-over): The smoke cloud fascinated even the people it chased from their homes. This woman and her husband stopped on their way out to take a look in awe and disbelief.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They said it was 43 percent contained, so we thought the problem was taken care of.
BELLINI: The evacuation order came after days of optimistic reports on the fire from authorities, who made "containment" a Teller County buzzword.
(on camera): Do you know where you are going to go at this point?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, we really have no place to go.
BELLINI: So what do you do? Where do you go?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. We'll figure it out.
BELLINI (voice-over): These were country folk chased to Woodland Park, population 6,500.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) possibility of evacuation.
BELLINI: A population facing the same fate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: According to them it's pretty bad, so...
BELLINI: One woman I came across had just heard the police blow horn and did exactly what the voice told her to do: prepare.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting the animals out now. So we'll find out.
BELLINI: But most people in Woodland Park seemed to take a wait- and-see approach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Us being a bunch of diehard red necks, you know we're going to hold it out until the very end and then run like hell and hope.
BELLINI: At the high school, fire info central for the area, the newly evacuated joined those who were evacuated a week earlier.
(on camera): Can you tell when someone is new?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. You can see the concern in their face. Ours is just almost -- almost contentment that we're safe and happy. And these people, you know, they look scared.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BELLINI: That last woman I was talking to was standing in the parking lot of the high school. The Red Cross has set up a facility there for all the evacuees. It's been -- not too many people have actually been staying there in the facility, but a lot of people are camping out there.
DORNIN: Do you get the sense that they're going to stay there? We've been to some evacuation centers that are sort of empty. People end up leaving. Did you get the sense they would stay there or...
BELLINI: The parking lot of this school has become effectively a trailer park. And so it's filled with people who have no place else to go. But because they have a camper or they have a trailer, they can park there. Other people who don't have that luxury of bringing their things with them on wheels, they'll go and stay with friends. There aren't too many people who are sleeping on cots in the gymnasium.
DORNIN: Right -- OK. Jason Bellini, thank you very much. And it looks like there are 7,000 more people who are also -- who are told to be on the alert. Told to watch TV, listen to the radio and that sort of thing today. Because they're expecting the winds to kick up again, 30-mile-an-hour gusts, which can be deadly in this kind of a fire.
So, Leon, just still -- it's hour by hour at this point.
HARRIS: Yeah, I can see why, too. Thanks Rusty. Thanks Jason.
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