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American Morning
Neighboring States Pledging More Resources to Help California
Aired October 30, 2003 - 08:06 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: Well, neighboring states are pledging more resources to help California fight the wildfires there.
Yesterday, the weather helped firefighters make a little bit of progress battling the Cedar Fire near San Diego. Officials say conditions were calm overnight. No new blazes broke out.
To the north, the wind made matters worse in the Stevenson Ranch community in L.A. County, where more homes were lost. So far, 20 people have been killed, including now one firefighter. More than 649,000 acres have burned. More than 2,400 homes have been destroyed. Almost 14,000 firefighters are working this blaze. Still not enough. Many of them are fighting intense fatigue after working nearly around the clock since these fires started last week.
Let's take you back now to the front lines of the fire.
Dan Diego County is where the state's largest fire is raging and also where fires claimed the life of the first firefighter in the battle.
Jeff Flock is live for us in Santa Ysabel, California -- Jeff. Good morning.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, good morning to you.
You talk about the weather, you know, you can't really see it because it's so fine a mist, but it has begun to drizzle here, believe it or not. Despite that and despite the fact that it's five o'clock in the morning, if you look up on the mountain, you see very, very active fire. This would be the low point of the day for the fire and still it's really burning good yup there.
On the other side of the mountain, it is a hot fire also burning up there. And the fact that this fire is so resilient and still so powerful is still, and still kicking very hard, is the worst possible news for the men and women who continue to battle it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every plan we come up with just hasn't worked out for us.
FLOCK (voice-over): They are frustrated, tired...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're maybe supposed to get out this morning and then now we're not going to. FLOCK: And some have even lost their own homes while protecting someone else's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of worse things that could happen.
FLOCK: Yet they continue to hang tough in toughening conditions.
MONTEEL TREMAIN: We're getting wind shifts in here every half an hour.
FLOCK: The worst for Monteel Tremain (ph) and the other hot shots who run to where to where spot fires spring from the main blaze and dig fuel away. Watch the wind shift on this one. The flames change direction and they have to retreat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on back.
FLOCK: That wind shift came from a head fire like this one, that blew up and shot flames a thousand feet in the air, killing one firefighter and burning three others.
CHRIS WILBURN, FIREFIGHTER: It creates its own weather. We had 40 mile an hour gusts of wind that it was creating while we're fighting the fire.
FLOCK: Chris Wilburn knows all about firestorms. One like this burned his home in Koyamaka (ph) while he was out fighting another flank of it across town. He hasn't stopped working.
(on camera): Firefighters are not known for showing a lot of emotion.
WILBURN: Well, it's probably when I'm driving down the road when there's nobody else with me, huh?
FLOCK: For now, they continue to do what they do, set backfires, bulldoze fire breaks, drop water from the air and march into battle against the worst California wildfires that any of them has ever seen.
DENNIS CAMPANALE, FIREFIGHTER: So we made some saves. But when you lose more than you save, it's real frustrating. It's disheartening because you know the people losing their lives, they're counting on you and we can't do it all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FLOCK: They try to do it all, though, Soledad. And I'll need to point out that those up close and personal images that you saw in that report were captured by our cameraman Rick Hall and producer Grace Ramirez, who were on the fire that killed that first firefighter yesterday. And Grace was in a particularly harrowing situation where that fire came over her. She wound up, you know, needing to make a harrowing escape from the situation. Others were trapped in there also. It was a very bad situation and a real reminder just how powerful this fire is, how dangerous it is, how changeable it is. You know, we hear that on and on, but we got a real firsthand lesson in it yesterday -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Jeff, no question about that.
Please be careful.
Take care of yourselves.
Also, the crew members, as well. Be careful out there while you're reporting the story for us. We certainly appreciate being able to see it up close, but watch yourselves.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
California>
Aired October 30, 2003 - 08:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, neighboring states are pledging more resources to help California fight the wildfires there.
Yesterday, the weather helped firefighters make a little bit of progress battling the Cedar Fire near San Diego. Officials say conditions were calm overnight. No new blazes broke out.
To the north, the wind made matters worse in the Stevenson Ranch community in L.A. County, where more homes were lost. So far, 20 people have been killed, including now one firefighter. More than 649,000 acres have burned. More than 2,400 homes have been destroyed. Almost 14,000 firefighters are working this blaze. Still not enough. Many of them are fighting intense fatigue after working nearly around the clock since these fires started last week.
Let's take you back now to the front lines of the fire.
Dan Diego County is where the state's largest fire is raging and also where fires claimed the life of the first firefighter in the battle.
Jeff Flock is live for us in Santa Ysabel, California -- Jeff. Good morning.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, good morning to you.
You talk about the weather, you know, you can't really see it because it's so fine a mist, but it has begun to drizzle here, believe it or not. Despite that and despite the fact that it's five o'clock in the morning, if you look up on the mountain, you see very, very active fire. This would be the low point of the day for the fire and still it's really burning good yup there.
On the other side of the mountain, it is a hot fire also burning up there. And the fact that this fire is so resilient and still so powerful is still, and still kicking very hard, is the worst possible news for the men and women who continue to battle it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every plan we come up with just hasn't worked out for us.
FLOCK (voice-over): They are frustrated, tired...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're maybe supposed to get out this morning and then now we're not going to. FLOCK: And some have even lost their own homes while protecting someone else's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of worse things that could happen.
FLOCK: Yet they continue to hang tough in toughening conditions.
MONTEEL TREMAIN: We're getting wind shifts in here every half an hour.
FLOCK: The worst for Monteel Tremain (ph) and the other hot shots who run to where to where spot fires spring from the main blaze and dig fuel away. Watch the wind shift on this one. The flames change direction and they have to retreat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on back.
FLOCK: That wind shift came from a head fire like this one, that blew up and shot flames a thousand feet in the air, killing one firefighter and burning three others.
CHRIS WILBURN, FIREFIGHTER: It creates its own weather. We had 40 mile an hour gusts of wind that it was creating while we're fighting the fire.
FLOCK: Chris Wilburn knows all about firestorms. One like this burned his home in Koyamaka (ph) while he was out fighting another flank of it across town. He hasn't stopped working.
(on camera): Firefighters are not known for showing a lot of emotion.
WILBURN: Well, it's probably when I'm driving down the road when there's nobody else with me, huh?
FLOCK: For now, they continue to do what they do, set backfires, bulldoze fire breaks, drop water from the air and march into battle against the worst California wildfires that any of them has ever seen.
DENNIS CAMPANALE, FIREFIGHTER: So we made some saves. But when you lose more than you save, it's real frustrating. It's disheartening because you know the people losing their lives, they're counting on you and we can't do it all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FLOCK: They try to do it all, though, Soledad. And I'll need to point out that those up close and personal images that you saw in that report were captured by our cameraman Rick Hall and producer Grace Ramirez, who were on the fire that killed that first firefighter yesterday. And Grace was in a particularly harrowing situation where that fire came over her. She wound up, you know, needing to make a harrowing escape from the situation. Others were trapped in there also. It was a very bad situation and a real reminder just how powerful this fire is, how dangerous it is, how changeable it is. You know, we hear that on and on, but we got a real firsthand lesson in it yesterday -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Jeff, no question about that.
Please be careful.
Take care of yourselves.
Also, the crew members, as well. Be careful out there while you're reporting the story for us. We certainly appreciate being able to see it up close, but watch yourselves.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
California>
