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Arizona Firefighters Reining in the Flames; Interview With U.S. Forest Service Chief

Aired July 01, 2002 - 12:33   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: A three-week battle appears to be nearing an end for firefighters in Arizona. They say they have reined in that state's largest ever fire. And folks who fled that fire are now seeing for themselves what it did.

CNN's David Mattingly joins us now from Pinedale, Arizona.

What's it look like, David?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, it doesn't look too good in some areas.

Pinedale was on the front lines of this fire very early on. Last week, you had heard us talking about that wall of flame that was menacing Show Low. Well, before that wall of flame went to Show Low, it came through here. Almost two weeks ago now, the fire was raining sparks and red-hot embers in this little community; 40 homes were lost. That's out of 180 in the fire district.

But as you look at these pictures, consider that, for days, everyone thought this entire town was a goner. And if it were not for the heroic efforts of volunteer firemen and local residents, who ignored the evacuation order, everything might have looked like this. Now, what you are looking at here are the remains of the community fire department. The volunteer fire department building here perished while the volunteer firemen were helping to save homes.

And with me is Walt Hedges (ph). Walt is a volunteer fireman.

You were there. What did you see coming over that ridge?

WALT HEDGES, VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER: A large column of smoke. It looked like your hand standing up there, black, dirty gray, full of red sparks and embers, and coming at about 20 miles an hour.

MATTINGLY: Why didn't you just turn around and run out of here?

HEDGES: Well, I guess because we're neighbors to everybody else that is out here. We had a nice thing happen to that fire. We had a wind come up. We never have a wind out of the east this time of year, but we did. About a 30 mile-an-hour wind blew that whole thing three- quarters of a mile west of here, saved most of town. MATTINGLY: You caught a break from the wind, but it was still touch-and-go for quite a long time. You were going around house to house putting out fires.

HEDGES: That's true. That's true. We had a bunch of people who had never fought wildland fires before -- structural fires, yes, wildland fires, no. They are accomplished wildland fire veterans now, no question about it.

MATTINGLY: Now, I have to get everybody to get a good look at this: "I Survived the Rodeo-Chediski Fire 2002." The fact that the T- shirts are out could probably tell you that we have passed probably the worst part of this fire, this area among the first to be contained.

Officials are now reporting 45 percent containment of this fire. And they're confident that they have turned the corner -- and now with the arrest of someone, also everyone happy that someone has been arrested so quickly in this.

I also wanted to ask you real quick, you heard that someone been arrested, a part-time firefighter, who is being blamed for starting this fire. How do you feel about that?

HEDGES: Well, I don't feel -- I don't know the man. I feel angry that anybody would set fire to the woods and endanger my house or in fact set fire to woods and just endanger the woods. But there's no accounting for taste, I guess.

MATTINGLY: And the woods have definitely been damaged around here. All of the darkened and browned trees that you see back there -- and there's miles of them going that way -- will probably will not survive. They will have to be cut down sometime in the near future -- Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right, David Mattingly, thank you so much

Well, elsewhere, fires remain out of control. Over the weekend, the tiny town of Shields, North Dakota, population 15, burned to the ground. One official says the only thing left standing is one home, one bar and the post office.

The gambling resort of Deadwood, South Dakota, is facing uncertain odds. Tourists and residents have fled as the Grizzly Gulch fire heads that way. Those flames have come within 100 yards of the cemetery where Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok are buried. And across the Canadian Prairies, winds are fueling a huge fire near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. More than 17,000 acres already have burned.

Well, it's turning out to be one of the worst fire seasons in recent memory, with more than 44,000 fires burning so far this year. Some of them were manmade, others sparked by lightning. All of them have been devastating.

Joining us now is Dale Bosworth, chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

I can't imagine what all of you are going through. Dale, what is the latest now? And how is everybody responding to what has been happening in the past number of weeks?

DALE BOSWORTH, U.S. FOREST SERVICE CHIEF: Well, it's a very difficult fire season.

Our folks, all the wildland firefighters, the volunteer fire departments, are, I think, doing an extraordinary job, given the circumstances that we have, with the drought, with way too much fuel out in the forests, with a lot of homes that are living in the wildland community interface. So, it's a difficult year. But I think people are responding very well.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about some of these fires and how they started.

The latest news: Leonard Gregg, the firefighter with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, being arrested for starting this fire. What does this tell us? He said they needed the money. He started the fire because he needed the money to work. What does this tell us about resources and what these firefighters are being paid?

BOSWORTH: Well, I really can't comment on that. Any time somebody starts a fire, regardless of what the reasons is, it's just a bad situation.

And out in the West, about 90 percent of the fires actually start from lightning and the other 10 percent are human caused, and for a lot of different reasons. But it's not a good circumstance.

PHILLIPS: How are the firefighters with the Bureau of Indian Affairs paid?

BOSWORTH: I'm not sure. That is a different agency. My understanding was that this individual is a firefighter with a private sector, a contractor. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs contracted with this private-sector firefighting crew, just like we do in the Forest Service. We have a lot of own firefighters, but we also contract outside for a lot of people.

PHILLIPS: And we also want to make it clear that he is not an employee of the Forest Service, correct?

BOSWORTH: That's correct.

PHILLIPS: All right, well, let's talk about Terry Lynn Barton, the one charged, the female charged with starting the Hayman fire.

Is it character issues? Is it pay issues? How are these Forest Service employees screened before taking on a job such as working with the Forest Service?

BOSWORTH: Well, just like any other kind of job, people apply for jobs. We check them out. If they have got a good work history and work experience, then we may hire them. Some we hire. Just as some are seasonals, we hire a lot of students right out of college, or while they are summer employees. So, it's a variety of employees that we pick up. And we keep the ones that do well. And those that don't move on to other things.

PHILLIPS: How are other employees reacting to this?

BOSWORTH: Well, any time that something like this happens, it is really -- it is discouraging and embarrassing, frankly for people in our organization.

And when you look at the number of firefighters that we have -- between all the wildland firefighting organizations, somewhere about 17,000, and in the Forest Service, we have a total of about 35,000 employees -- people just feel real bad about that. And, as I said, it is embarrassing.

We are an organization that needs public trust. And we want to have the public trust. Our folks are out there working real hard. They are, in some cases, putting their life on the line to try to protect some of these communities. And it is just not a good deal when this kind of thing happens.

PHILLIPS: Do you think employees at the U.S. Forest Service are paid enough to do what they do?

BOSWORTH: Well, I believe that people are paid an adequate amount.

If you talk to one of the employees out there, they would always like to have more money. But it is good employment for our firefighters. And most of them do it because they really like the work. And most of the time, we don't have people that are working because they want to get big bucks. They are working because they really care about what they're doing.

PHILLIPS: Dale Bosworth, U.S. Forest Service chief, thank you, sir.

BOSWORTH: Thank you.

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