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CNN Live Today

Firefighters Grow Optimistic About Saving Show Low

Aired June 27, 2002 - 11:14   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We've been covering for days now the firefighters out there who are working day and night, around the clock there, hoping to gain some ground on these fires. In Arizona now, they are hoping to gain some ground on the mammoth wildfire that has burned more than 400,000 acres so far. They are getting increasingly optimistic about saving the town of Show Low. However, the weather may be the wild card. Let's check in on that.

CNN's Bill Delaney is standing by live in Show Low this morning -- all right, give us our first weather report of the day from out there, Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first weather report is the bluest skies we've seen here in Show Low, Arizona, Leon, in many days. There's still smoke down on the horizon there, but the skies above us are quite blue. The news here is awfully good for this city of 7,700, all of them evacuated now.

You know, Leon, for days, from our fire camp here, we've been looking across the street at this little neighborhood. It's been kind of eerie silence in the neighborhood. At night, the lights in the houses, of course, don't come on. This neighborhood was considered very, very vulnerable by fire officials, most of these homes are of wood. Some of them have big piles of wood behind them.

But now, it does appear that the people who live in these places, their -- with their families, will be able to come back in as soon as a few days, fire officials say. Wonderful news for the people who have been living in gymnasiums here, of course. Very important, indeed.

There will be a lot to be done, of course, when they do come back. Simple stuff like turning the gas on. The gas has been turned off here in Show Low. You know, Leon, you don't just flip a switch and the gas goes on again. Each individual home has to be visited by the gas company, and each individual appliance has to be turned on again. It is going to take weeks.

But, of course, the important thing is, the houses will still be standing. Still, a mammoth fire, still only 5 percent contained, 640 square miles burning, 409,000 acres in all. Listen to Carrie Templin of the National Forest Service.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARRIE TEMPLIN, INFORMATION OFFICER, NATIONAL FOREST SERVICE: Our fire size has grown to 409,000 acres. We have 3,851 people working on this fire, and we are still at 5 percent containment this evening. One piece of information that I received pertinent to this is that late last night, we lost six structures in the northwest quadrant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DELANEY: Four hundred twenty-three homes and structures in all have been lost to this fire. Thirty thousand still evacuated from their homes in Central Arizona -- Leon.

HARRIS: All right. Thanks, Bill. We will get back with you later on. We are going to check on another fire situation, one that really came out of nowhere yesterday, and this one was not one that was caused by a natural event. It was caused by a man -- however, this one may have been totally accidental. A car fire in California, basically, has started another huge fire that is burning in the San Bernardino -- we understand it is in the Bernardino National Forest.

Eric Spillman of our Los Angeles affiliate KTLA is there. He is going to give us both the picture and the story on this one -- hello. What is the word, Eric?

ERIC SPILLMAN, KTLA CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Leon. We're about 60 or 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles in a place called the Cajon pass here, and firefighters are hard at work here this morning. What they are doing is setting backfires in this area. They're hoping to take away the fuel from the main brushfire, cause the fire to burn in on itself, and they are hoping that that will stop it in its tracks later today.

So far -- so far this fire in the Cajon pass area has burned 6,700 acres. It started late yesterday when a car caught fire along Interstate 15. The flames spread quickly to the dry brush, and the fire just took off after that. Highway 15 is the main road between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. And yesterday, drivers approaching the wall of fire made U-turns on the freeway to escape.

The fire burned right up to the side of the road, then jumped over the interstate. The road was closed for more than 12 hours. It has reopened, as of this morning, but with police escorts only. For a time, this fire threatened a rail line and a freight train in this area. It burned near some electrical lines, some high-power transmission lines, and caused 500,000 people to lose electricity for a time, and it has so far destroyed three homes on ranches here.

Coming back here live to our picture of the backfire this morning here. Again, this was set by firefighters here working in this area overnight. The strategy today is to light a backfire, a big one to consume the fuel in the path of the main fire, and basically cause it to have nowhere to go. So far, there is no estimate on when they are going to get this thing under control.

Reporting live for CNN from the Cajon Pass in California, I'm Eric Spillman.

HARRIS: Hi, Eric. Leon here, back in Atlanta. We just got finished speaking with our guy out in Show Low, Arizona. He was talking about how the weather is affecting things out there. How about where you sit right now? Is the weather cooperating at all? I don't see really very much wind activity, it looks like, with that smoke there.

SPILLMAN: Yes. It's warm here, but, as you mentioned, it's calm, which is a good time for them to be lighting the backfires because they can control it better. Of course, later in the day, things tend to heat up. The winds tend to blow harder. We're in a pass. We're in a canyon area here. It becomes a funnel for the wind, and then that's the really dangerous part of the day, late in the afternoon. That's when they're worried that this thing could take off again.

HARRIS: Got you. And how steep are the hills out there -- I mean, I'm not sure you could really -- how do you describe this to somebody who is not there to see it? But I know when we are talking with these firefighters in these situations, they are always talking about how the hills, once that fire starts going uphill, it makes it almost impossible to start -- to stop, rather. How much -- is the steepness of the hills there causing a problem?

SPILLMAN: Well, fire does tend to burn up a hill faster than it does down a hill, but the real problem isn't the steepness of the hill, the real problem is the fact that the vegetation here is so dry. This is the type of dryness that normally they would have later in the year, perhaps in August and September. This year, we've seen so many fires so early in the season, it does not look good for later on.

HARRIS: Yes, boy. These firefighters are going to have their hands full for a while. Eric Spillman, thanks for the update.

SPILLMAN: Absolutely.

HARRIS: We sure appreciate that. Eric Spillman from our affiliate KTLA reporting this morning.

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