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CNN Live Today
Firefighters Gain Ground in Arizona; To Burn or Not to Burn
Aired June 28, 2002 - 12:34 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Authorities are still searching for whoever set the massive fire out in Arizona. Firefighters haven't given the all-clear to the town of Show Low just yet, but they are getting a bit closer.
CNN's David Mattingly, he joins us from Show Low -- hi there, David.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka.
There is still a big concern about property damage from this fire. Only, it has shifted to the West, away from Show Low, and to the towns again of Heber and Overgaard. And that's where firefighters have a tremendous task ahead of them today. They have to clear 90 miles of control lines.
Now, we showed you some of this activity yesterday as we drove through the area. They were burning along the roadside. They were trying to get rid of the fuel that the fire would need to come through that area. Heber and Overgaard are the sites of the worst property damage so far in Arizona. Over 200 homes have been lost there, six more burned. That was reported yesterday.
Elsewhere, however, like here in Show Low, attention is now turning to exactly when and how people can return to their homes. The first priority today is to shuttle in people who have lost their homes into what's left of their neighborhoods.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM PAXON, FIRE INFORMATION OFFICER: Well, they will get firsthand sight of their loss or their damage. That's going to be a very sensitive thing. They will start the grieving process and the realization. We will let them back in when we get all the hazards mitigated. But they won't even be able to get off the vans today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Forestry officials now reporting 10 percent containment of this fire. That's up from the 5 percent figure we were reporting this time yesterday. And another sign that progress is being made: This is our second day of clear blue skies over Show Low. The evacuees, I'm sure, would like nothing more than to return home just so they can enjoy it -- Fredricka, back to you. WHITFIELD: All right, David, appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Well, that fire and others across the West are burning so fast and furious that, because of all of the brush, it hasn't been cleared. With as dry as it is, you might be wondering, why hasn't it been cut?
CNN's Charles Molineaux has been looking into that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the early days of the Colorado and Arizona fires, the accusations and questions have heated up. Why hasn't the U.S. Forest Service done more to thin out overgrown tinder dry forests?
GOV. JANE HULL (R), ARIZONA: We have talked about and talked about and talked about. And the word does not seem to get back to the environmentalists, to the courts, who keep us from cleaning up the fires.
REP. SCOTT MCINNIS (R), COLORADO: We're trying to thin these forests. We are going to have more of these fires if we can't cut through some of these regulations and get some of these groups to work with us.
MOLINEAUX: Colorado Congressman Scott McInnis's Forest & Forest Health Subcommittee is now looking at what's being called gridlock and analysis paralysis of the Forest Service.
Here, in the Manitou Experimental Forest, even Colorado's intense Hayman fire seemed to prove the value of forest thinning when it hit a thinned area and petered out. Thinning and lighting controlled fires simulate the effects of periodic natural burning that, up until 100 years ago, kept forests open and actually prevented catastrophic forests, back before people started putting fires out.
But the Forest Service says thousands of its forest-management proposals are being held up by appeals, many by environmental groups. And some 500 of them are now in court. It says it is using 40 percent of its manpower just on paperwork.
JIM PAXON, FIRE INFORMATION OFFICER: Our hands are tied by laws that people can tie us up with, appeals and litigations, and stop us from doing projects that need to be implemented on the ground.
MOLINEAUX: The service says it also gets stymied by homeowners in the woods, who prefer their forests thick and don't much care for the burned-out look left by controlled burns. Environmental advocates say the Forest Service is too willing to bring in timber companies, who will cut down the most profitable, most fire-resistant larger, older trees.
ROCKY SMITH, COLORADO WILD: They are doing things that many members of the public, including many locals, as well as environmentalists, do not like. And so they have to expect to get challenged.
MOLINEAUX: Rocky Smith with Colorado Wild says the government should come up with the money to do very limited thinning itself, instead of having loggers do it and take out some desirable older trees, too.
The Hayman fire blew up just as the Forest Health Subcommittee was starting its Forest Service probe. The inquiry will start up again in two weeks.
Charles Molineaux, CNN, Denver.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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