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CNN Live Today

Weather Holds for Show Low, but for How Long?

Aired June 26, 2002 - 13:14   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: In Arizona today, a ray of hope. Fire officials say for the first time, they've made progress, containing 5 percent of that massive wildfire. Still, though, the flames loom less than half a mile from the tiny town of Show Low. Our Bill Delaney is there, joins us live again -- Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, thank you, Kyra. You know, those flames are right down the street from where we are, a ways down that street. But what you see there on the horizon is smoke, a wall of smoke. We are confined here to this -- what they call fire camp, which is really the campus of Show Low High School, and we watch the weather around here from our confinement point very carefully all day. Above us, you can see blue sky. Now, that's not necessarily good, oddly enough. When the smoke comes in here and descends upon us as it did yesterday, that cools everything off. It cools the fire off, too, and that's good.

For the moment now, fire lines very much holding here. We will be watching throughout the day to see whether the wind, which is still now, picks up. Now, when this fire was burning in giant plumes last weekend, a couple of days ago, we had tremendous gusty winds here, up to 40, even 50 miles an hour. The winds calming down here might seem like, again, a good thing, this fire business is quite complicated, might seem like a good thing for the winds to die down, doesn't drive the fire towards you.

But what can happen is, as the fire picks up, as -- rather, as the wind picks up, it can drive plumes, it can drive embers over the area, into areas unprotected, and possibly start a fire. Now, we want to go to Keith Brandemihl, a firefighter who was out all last night, who we spoke to earlier and talked a bit about the potential here for this good scenario we are looking at now to not work out as well as we're hoping.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEITH BRANDEMIHL, FIREFIGHTER: Everything is just kind of mellow at this point, but it is still rocking and rolling right now. It might look mellow now, but it's still going, and -- to me, it's kind of like a sleeping giant. I mean, the wind is kind of the nemesis of this, and it could just flare up at anytime.

(END VIDEO CLIP) DELANEY: Watching and waiting this sleeping giant, 30,000 people still evacuated here in Central Arizona, waiting to know when -- and it won't be any sooner than several days -- they can go home -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Bill Delaney, thank you.

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