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CNN Live Today
Colorado Farmers Try To Maintain Way of Life in Midst of Blaze
Aired June 18, 2002 - 14:06 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now I want to go to our top stories in Colorado today.
Erratic winds are pushing a monstrous wildfire into new territory. That, combined with tinder dry conditions, could force hundreds more people near Denver to flee.
Our Rusty Dornin brings us the latest on the conditions, once again from Castle Rock -- Rusty.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, those winds pushed the fire another 10,000 acres and forced 100 people to evacuate.
There's already 5,600 people out of their homes. Now, a few of those folks who were on the edges of the fire are allowed to go back in, to check on their livestock and check on the property damage to their homes.
Well, we followed one buffalo rancher on to his property to check out the damage and to check out his herd, and we got a first-hand lesson on how stubborn some of these wildfires can be.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(voice-over): Twenty miles from the nearest paved road, there's not much standing of Neil and Teresa (ph) Fischer's buffalo ranch. Gray ash -- that's all that's left of six buildings on the property.
The fires marched right up to the backdoor of their cabin. Firefighters turned it back.
(on camera): Were you just amazed when you came in to see what had been destroyed and what had been saved?
NEIL FISCHER, BUFFALO RANCHER: Just beyond words. We couldn't -- I couldn't believe they these could be totally burned out and the house isn't burnt.
DORNIN (voice-over): We've gone behind the fire line with the Fischer's. They're only allowed in for a few hours a day. A quick look up the hill, an eerie reminder of just why.
FISCHER: Just over the hill, there's another fire that just kicked up, and up over the hill is the bigger part of the fire, and the you just saw, down where the buffalo are, there's another spot fire. So it's far from being out.
DORNIN: The Fischer's worried about that smoke just over the hill. There, flames once extinguished, rise again.
During a fire like this, there is no such thing as spectators. The TV crew becomes part of the fire crew.
FISCHER: Right on that tree. Ready? Go.
DORNIN: For 45 minutes, we haul water to dampen the blaze.
FISCHER: You see how it's burning on the other side of the stump again?
DORNIN (on camera): The firefighters come and put the fire out, but then you've got to worry also to about it coming back?
FISCHER: This happened last summer. They put it out and they said watch it. The next morning, myself and the four kids were out, doing exactly this for four hours.
DORNIN (voice-over): Satisfied we had reduced it to a smolder, it's back in the truck and on to the main mission: feed the herd of 27 buffalo.
FISCHER: A few days ago, they were just laying down and they were almost dead, the smoke was so heavy here for three days.
DORNIN: So, Fischer mixes a medical concoction of aspirin mash and sweet syrup.
FISCHER: This is going to help the inflammation in their lungs to subside somewhat.
DORNIN: But, fire, smoke, helicopters hauling water, and firefighters invading their pasture, have stressed out the herd.
Fischer says he can usually walk safely among them. Not today.
The risks of life on the ranch.
FISCHER: Spending time up here, there's no place like this in the world that we know of.
DORNIN: Risks they're willing to continue to take.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(on camera): Now, the smoke has really backed up from this Hayman fire into the valley, and the air quality apparently is so bad that folks in Denver, you know the elderly and the very young or the sick, are being told not to go outdoors.
Now, the winds are just coming up now, and for the next four hours, that's the critical time. There's about 7,000 people not too far from here, in the mountain communities, that are being told be ready to flee if these winds kick up, again -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Now, Rusty, this family that you spent time with, and their four kids, where are they living now? What's their situation right now?
DORNIN: Well, they actually have another cabin that they are living in, because this place that they have, this property they have, where the buffalo is and this cabin, is so remote that they can't stay there all winter because they can't get out. So they live there much of the summer and that sort of thing. So they do have another place to go.
But it's, you know, these old, historic buildings that were on the property, that burned down, and of course he's very worried about this buffalo herd that he's just trying to build up.
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