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American Morning

Fast Moving Fire Northwest of L.A. Very Close to Some Homes

Aired October 29, 2003 - 07:32   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's turn back to our top story this morning. A fast moving fire northwest of Los Angeles very close to some homes in Stevenson Ranch.
Daryn Kagan is there.

She joins us again with the latest from there -- Daryn, good morning.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning once again, Soledad.

As we were telling you at the top of the hour, firefighters say that the fire that you see burning so close to these homes is doing exactly what they want it to do. It's burning slowly, going down the hill, and if conditions work in their favor, it'll blow back into the canyon. And still if you're a homeowner in this neighborhood, very concerning.

We have one of those homeowners with us right now, Jennifer Belmont.

Jennifer, good morning.

Very early here.

JENNIFER BELMONT, HOMEOWNER:

Yes, we've been up. I've been here since about midnight.

KAGAN: Now this neighborhood has been evacuated, but it's a voluntary evacuation. You have your family, your husband, your two boys back at the hotel, but you felt the need to come back into the neighborhood. BELMONT: Oh, I woke up and wanted to see if our house was still here. And it is so.

KAGAN: And what was that like to drive up? Not just to your home, but this entire neighborhood is still here.

BELMONT: It's such a relief, such a relief. The firemen have been awesome, awesome.

KAGAN: You decided for now you're going to keep the boys -- it's not time to come home yet. You look at these hillsides and you think not quite yet.

BELMONT: Right. I have two kids and my husband at the hotel. My older son has asthma so it's not a good time for him to be here. KAGAN: And you were telling me also that you have both your family cars packed up with your most treasured family belongings. People, everyone kind of has to go through that exercise in their head, when you've got to get out and you don't have a lot of warning, what do you take. What did your family take?

BELMONT: We took all the pictures, all our videotapes. Actually, took a computer that has all our pictures on it, too. And just the things that are irreplaceable. That was it.

KAGAN: And real quickly, you said it was really important to you to show your appreciation to the firefighters who you believe had saved your home. BELMONT: Yes. I've got some firefighters that are sleeping in our garage and they've been awesome. I can't thank them enough and I thank god and feel so horrible for the people that lost homes.

KAGAN: You understand that more than most.

BELMONT: Yes.

KAGAN: Absolutely.

BELMONT: Yes.

KAGAN: Good luck to you and your family.

BELMONT: Thank you so much.

KAGAN: Jennifer Belmont, thank you.

BELMONT: Thank you.

KAGAN: Jennifer is just one of the many homeowners who stayed up all night. They're up and down the streets here in Stevenson Ranch. They're watching what is coming down the hillside. And firefighter words are comforting to say it's doing what it's supposed to. But I think until they're home and safe back in their own homes, this certainly is not going to be over for them -- Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Yes, Daryn, no question about that.

Give me a sense of how big this neighborhood is. You said that some of the neighbors, like the woman you've interviewed, are coming back and sort of scoping things out as it gets, you know, it's only, what, four o'clock in the morning there or 4:30 in the morning where you are.

KAGAN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: How big is this neighborhood? How many homes are we talking about overall?

KAGAN: Yes, we're talking hundreds of homes in this area and as Jennifer Belmont was saying, it's a matter of luck of the draw at this point because if the Santa Ana winds actually kick up a little bit, that's going to work in their favor today, because it's going to kick the fire back over in that direction. Another significant neighborhood of Santa Clarita is over to my right. If normal wind conditions take place today, firefighters -- fire officials were explaining to me five to 10 miles an hour, southwesterly direction, it's going to go that way. And then we're talking about a whole other neighborhood that will be endangered.

So they're very grateful, as you heard, to the firefighters in this neighborhood and clear across southern California, Soledad. But in the end, it's really Mother Nature who is steering this ship.

O'BRIEN: Yes, no question about that.

Daryn Kagan for us this morning.

Daryn, thanks.

We'll check in with you again.

KAGAN: Sure.

O'BRIEN: Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One of the homes lost in San Diego County belonged to Congressman Duncan Hunter. Hunter was in Washington when he received the news Monday.

He joins us now from the Capitol.

Congressman Hunter, glad to have you with us and we're sorry about your loss.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, good to be with you. But we, we're one, obviously, one of many families which -- who have lost their homes and the main thing, I think, is to get everybody out. And our little canyon was running east-west when those winds kind of wheeled and started to go to the east.

It swept up the canyon and got just about everything in its track. And my wife called up and said you won't believe it, but the only thing it missed was the old station wagon we've been trying to get rid of. The fire wouldn't take it.

O'BRIEN: Everything else is -- there's a little bit of irony there. Anything -- there was nothing else left of your house? And, by the way, we should clarify, we're looking at sort of generic pictures of that general area, not your house specifically.

HUNTER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: But nothing remained except that old car?

HUNTER: Well, that's right. My brother-in-law went up to look for the house and I said, "Are you sure it's gone?" He said, "You know, a house is pretty hard to miss when it's there." So he said, "Yes, it's gone." O'BRIEN: All right. And everybody is safe and sound, though, most importantly?

HUNTER: Yes. Although we've had, obviously we've had fatalities in San Diego Canyon. We had people who were trapped in that canyon and we've had fatalities.

O'BRIEN: Give us a sense of what the response has been so far. The firefighters are clearly swamped and, you know, it's difficult to be critical of their efforts. There's -- nobody could do enough to stop these flames.

HUNTER: The firefighters are doing a great job and you've got folks who have been up there for several days on the job without sleep, without much food. They're doing a great job. We're trying to move military aircraft from other parts of the country. We now have the MAF (ph) units there in California that came out from Colorado Springs and also move the military aircraft from North Carolina and from Wyoming in today. And we've got CH-53 Black Hawks or CH-53 Marine helicopters with the big buckets that hit the hillside fires now staging at Camp Pendleton.

So everything is going into this fight. We're going to win it. We're going to rebuild San Diego County and California. We're optimistic, tough people and we'll get through this.

O'BRIEN: And you say you'll rebuild that area. Do you think it's safe to rebuild in those places? Many of these homes, if this fire occurred 10 years ago there wouldn't have been any homes there.

HUNTER: Well, well, what's happened...

O'BRIEN: Is this a good place to be living?

HUNTER: Well, what's happened is you have accumulated brush, that is, in the firefighters' parlance, fuel, that is this high sage brush. And, of course, now in most of these areas, that's been swept away by this fire. So at least for a number of years it's going to be, there's going to be a low fuel count in these areas and there will be less chance of fire.

That's little consolation for folks who have been swept up in this fire, but this fire has taken down some high fuel areas where there was no cutting of brush for literally dozens and dozens of years. So there was lots of fuel to make this place go.

O'BRIEN: Do you think it's appropriate and right for the federal government to step in and help folks such as yourself rebuild?

HUNTER: Oh, absolutely. But I think most folks, most people in California, because fire is a big hazard, have fire insurance. But the president signed the disaster order yesterday or two days ago. And that order triggers lots of benefits coming from the federal government to do two things. One, to help knock this fire back and win the war against the fire. The other, of course, to help people rebuild. And there's a series of benefits that are triggered by that disaster signing.

President Bush has done that. He's doing everything he can. The military is moving in with everything they've got. The chairman of the joint chiefs gave California firefighters his home number, said if you want equipment, give me a call.

So everybody's pitching in. We're going to win this thing.

O'BRIEN: Are you going to rebuild right on that site?

HUNTER: What's that? I didn't hear that question.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, are you going to rebuild right on that site?

HUNTER: Yes. I think we're going to rebuild right there and it's the old home place and we like it and I think that's where we're going.

O'BRIEN: Good luck.

HUNTER: Thank you.

Appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: Congressman Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, San Diego County.

Thanks very much.

HUNTER: OK.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Homes>


Aired October 29, 2003 - 07:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's turn back to our top story this morning. A fast moving fire northwest of Los Angeles very close to some homes in Stevenson Ranch.
Daryn Kagan is there.

She joins us again with the latest from there -- Daryn, good morning.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning once again, Soledad.

As we were telling you at the top of the hour, firefighters say that the fire that you see burning so close to these homes is doing exactly what they want it to do. It's burning slowly, going down the hill, and if conditions work in their favor, it'll blow back into the canyon. And still if you're a homeowner in this neighborhood, very concerning.

We have one of those homeowners with us right now, Jennifer Belmont.

Jennifer, good morning.

Very early here.

JENNIFER BELMONT, HOMEOWNER:

Yes, we've been up. I've been here since about midnight.

KAGAN: Now this neighborhood has been evacuated, but it's a voluntary evacuation. You have your family, your husband, your two boys back at the hotel, but you felt the need to come back into the neighborhood. BELMONT: Oh, I woke up and wanted to see if our house was still here. And it is so.

KAGAN: And what was that like to drive up? Not just to your home, but this entire neighborhood is still here.

BELMONT: It's such a relief, such a relief. The firemen have been awesome, awesome.

KAGAN: You decided for now you're going to keep the boys -- it's not time to come home yet. You look at these hillsides and you think not quite yet.

BELMONT: Right. I have two kids and my husband at the hotel. My older son has asthma so it's not a good time for him to be here. KAGAN: And you were telling me also that you have both your family cars packed up with your most treasured family belongings. People, everyone kind of has to go through that exercise in their head, when you've got to get out and you don't have a lot of warning, what do you take. What did your family take?

BELMONT: We took all the pictures, all our videotapes. Actually, took a computer that has all our pictures on it, too. And just the things that are irreplaceable. That was it.

KAGAN: And real quickly, you said it was really important to you to show your appreciation to the firefighters who you believe had saved your home. BELMONT: Yes. I've got some firefighters that are sleeping in our garage and they've been awesome. I can't thank them enough and I thank god and feel so horrible for the people that lost homes.

KAGAN: You understand that more than most.

BELMONT: Yes.

KAGAN: Absolutely.

BELMONT: Yes.

KAGAN: Good luck to you and your family.

BELMONT: Thank you so much.

KAGAN: Jennifer Belmont, thank you.

BELMONT: Thank you.

KAGAN: Jennifer is just one of the many homeowners who stayed up all night. They're up and down the streets here in Stevenson Ranch. They're watching what is coming down the hillside. And firefighter words are comforting to say it's doing what it's supposed to. But I think until they're home and safe back in their own homes, this certainly is not going to be over for them -- Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Yes, Daryn, no question about that.

Give me a sense of how big this neighborhood is. You said that some of the neighbors, like the woman you've interviewed, are coming back and sort of scoping things out as it gets, you know, it's only, what, four o'clock in the morning there or 4:30 in the morning where you are.

KAGAN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: How big is this neighborhood? How many homes are we talking about overall?

KAGAN: Yes, we're talking hundreds of homes in this area and as Jennifer Belmont was saying, it's a matter of luck of the draw at this point because if the Santa Ana winds actually kick up a little bit, that's going to work in their favor today, because it's going to kick the fire back over in that direction. Another significant neighborhood of Santa Clarita is over to my right. If normal wind conditions take place today, firefighters -- fire officials were explaining to me five to 10 miles an hour, southwesterly direction, it's going to go that way. And then we're talking about a whole other neighborhood that will be endangered.

So they're very grateful, as you heard, to the firefighters in this neighborhood and clear across southern California, Soledad. But in the end, it's really Mother Nature who is steering this ship.

O'BRIEN: Yes, no question about that.

Daryn Kagan for us this morning.

Daryn, thanks.

We'll check in with you again.

KAGAN: Sure.

O'BRIEN: Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One of the homes lost in San Diego County belonged to Congressman Duncan Hunter. Hunter was in Washington when he received the news Monday.

He joins us now from the Capitol.

Congressman Hunter, glad to have you with us and we're sorry about your loss.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, good to be with you. But we, we're one, obviously, one of many families which -- who have lost their homes and the main thing, I think, is to get everybody out. And our little canyon was running east-west when those winds kind of wheeled and started to go to the east.

It swept up the canyon and got just about everything in its track. And my wife called up and said you won't believe it, but the only thing it missed was the old station wagon we've been trying to get rid of. The fire wouldn't take it.

O'BRIEN: Everything else is -- there's a little bit of irony there. Anything -- there was nothing else left of your house? And, by the way, we should clarify, we're looking at sort of generic pictures of that general area, not your house specifically.

HUNTER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: But nothing remained except that old car?

HUNTER: Well, that's right. My brother-in-law went up to look for the house and I said, "Are you sure it's gone?" He said, "You know, a house is pretty hard to miss when it's there." So he said, "Yes, it's gone." O'BRIEN: All right. And everybody is safe and sound, though, most importantly?

HUNTER: Yes. Although we've had, obviously we've had fatalities in San Diego Canyon. We had people who were trapped in that canyon and we've had fatalities.

O'BRIEN: Give us a sense of what the response has been so far. The firefighters are clearly swamped and, you know, it's difficult to be critical of their efforts. There's -- nobody could do enough to stop these flames.

HUNTER: The firefighters are doing a great job and you've got folks who have been up there for several days on the job without sleep, without much food. They're doing a great job. We're trying to move military aircraft from other parts of the country. We now have the MAF (ph) units there in California that came out from Colorado Springs and also move the military aircraft from North Carolina and from Wyoming in today. And we've got CH-53 Black Hawks or CH-53 Marine helicopters with the big buckets that hit the hillside fires now staging at Camp Pendleton.

So everything is going into this fight. We're going to win it. We're going to rebuild San Diego County and California. We're optimistic, tough people and we'll get through this.

O'BRIEN: And you say you'll rebuild that area. Do you think it's safe to rebuild in those places? Many of these homes, if this fire occurred 10 years ago there wouldn't have been any homes there.

HUNTER: Well, well, what's happened...

O'BRIEN: Is this a good place to be living?

HUNTER: Well, what's happened is you have accumulated brush, that is, in the firefighters' parlance, fuel, that is this high sage brush. And, of course, now in most of these areas, that's been swept away by this fire. So at least for a number of years it's going to be, there's going to be a low fuel count in these areas and there will be less chance of fire.

That's little consolation for folks who have been swept up in this fire, but this fire has taken down some high fuel areas where there was no cutting of brush for literally dozens and dozens of years. So there was lots of fuel to make this place go.

O'BRIEN: Do you think it's appropriate and right for the federal government to step in and help folks such as yourself rebuild?

HUNTER: Oh, absolutely. But I think most folks, most people in California, because fire is a big hazard, have fire insurance. But the president signed the disaster order yesterday or two days ago. And that order triggers lots of benefits coming from the federal government to do two things. One, to help knock this fire back and win the war against the fire. The other, of course, to help people rebuild. And there's a series of benefits that are triggered by that disaster signing.

President Bush has done that. He's doing everything he can. The military is moving in with everything they've got. The chairman of the joint chiefs gave California firefighters his home number, said if you want equipment, give me a call.

So everybody's pitching in. We're going to win this thing.

O'BRIEN: Are you going to rebuild right on that site?

HUNTER: What's that? I didn't hear that question.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, are you going to rebuild right on that site?

HUNTER: Yes. I think we're going to rebuild right there and it's the old home place and we like it and I think that's where we're going.

O'BRIEN: Good luck.

HUNTER: Thank you.

Appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: Congressman Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, San Diego County.

Thanks very much.

HUNTER: OK.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Homes>