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American Morning
Under Fire
Aired October 31, 2003 - 09:05 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: Now we want to update you on what could have been a tragic story for some California firefighters. On Wednesday morning, battalion crew chief David Shew and his 20 crew members were trapped inside their truck for some 30 minutes in the midst of a terrifying firestorm. Amazingly, every one of them survived. And Chief Shew joins us this morning from running springs.
Good morning to you. Thanks for joining us.
And give me a sense of what happened. You were fighting the blaze at Lake Arrowhead. My understanding is that there were 20 people on your team, then yourself on top of that. What happened?
BATT. CHIEF DAVID SHEW, CALIF. DEPT. OF FORESTRY: We had been working on a fire line. Our attempt was to do a backfire along Highway 18 to the east of Lake Arrowhead. And as the fire was coming up in the morning as day broke, the fire gained in a tremendous higher intensity than had been burning throughout the night. We recognized that the fire was going to come roaring up the canyon that we were working on top of. The goal was to really try to keep the fire from impacting the land to the north of Highway 18.
Unfortunately, the power of the storm overtook us. We took shelter in our engines in a safety zone that we had pre-identified. And had to sit it out while the storm blew over us.
O'BRIEN: Give me a sense for those of us who truly have never been close to a fire, what exactly a firestorm looks like and feels like, and while you do that, I'm going to show a couple of the pictures that you took on your digital camera. So just how bad was it? what does it feel like?
SHEW: Well, of course, you can imagine it was very hot. We didn't anticipate that the intensity was going to be as bad as it was. We knew that the fire was coming up very hard up the hill. We anticipated it hitting and doing some area ignition that we call it. All the trees, all the vegetation around us would be burned. We parked well away from any of the nearest trees, approximately 100 feet, and as they began burning, the heat was so intense that it was impossible to even touch the windows on the engines almost even with your gloves on. It was very hot. The engines began filling up with smoke.
At first, it turned to total blackness from the cloud of smoke in front of the firestorm, and then it just turned into this incredible orangish-red glow that surrounded the engine, and then, slowly but, surely, it turned to more smoke and ash. And it took about 30 minutes before it could clear up, before we could even see the ground below the engine itself.
O'BRIEN: We're looking at a photograph where you are looking or someone is looking out of the window and you could just see clearly, it looks like the vehicle is engulfed in this either red smoke or fire. How scary was it? And I understand that this is what you do for a living, which is scary in and of itself. But how terrified were you at this point when you realized how close you are to being engulfed by flames?
SHEW: Well, as you mentioned, we do this for a living. And we take these safety precautions to make sure that we aren't in danger. None of us, I don't feel, think -- I don't think that any of us felt that we were really in any kind of a life-threatening situation. We felt very safe inside the engines, and we knew that we weren't going to have any injuries or problems with it. We were more in just complete awe of the intensity and the ferocity of the fire itself. It was really incredible just watching it come through, and it hit with much higher intensity than any of us anticipated. So, it was really almost more exciting than anything, although I don't think I care to go through it again.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I can imagine.
How close were the flames to you? Because from that photograph, it almost looks like they're right outside the window. And as you say, the windows were so hot, you couldn't touch them. Were the flames engulfing the vehicle? And explain to me how an engine can actually protect you from the fire. I mean, don't engines -- couldn't they possibly burn up?
SHEW: Well, that is a possibility. But we made sure that we positioned the engines far enough away from the burning trees that the radiant heat wouldn't cause that problem.
The actual flames themselves I don't believe impinged on any of the engines. We checked the engines out later. Everything was fine. We didn't even have any melted plastic on the engines. So everything seemed to be OK. We did go ahead and experience a lot of smoke in the engines. The wind itself was blowing so intensely that the engines were rocking back and forth. And so the flame front went through relatively quickly. The photo that you're looking at with the orangish color outside the engine is actually a result of just the glow of the fire from the smoke that was surrounding us. And you can see bits of burning embers that were swirling around the engine during the entire time we were in there.
O'BRIEN: You said it lasted 30 minutes -- we don't have a ton of time -- then did everybody get out of the engine and go right back to work?
SHEW: Well, we had radio communication also. So throughout the incident, I was able to contact each one of the individual engines and make sure that everybody was OK. By just getting reports back from them, I knew that all the firefighters were safe and OK. It was hot and it was smoky, and wasn't very pleasant to breathe in those engines. But I knew we were all right. After the 30 minutes and we could see the ground outside the engines, we decided to go ahead and move them back to a safer area where it was less smoky, and we did so, and got out and kind of regrouped, and all took stock of where we were and what we'd just been through, and everybody was fine.
O'BRIEN: Well, Battalion Chief David Shew, we're really glad to hear that. And I'm glad I had an opportunity to talk to you live this morning, as opposed to the alternative. That's some good news to report. So thanks for joining us.
SHEW: Sure. You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 31, 2003 - 09:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now we want to update you on what could have been a tragic story for some California firefighters. On Wednesday morning, battalion crew chief David Shew and his 20 crew members were trapped inside their truck for some 30 minutes in the midst of a terrifying firestorm. Amazingly, every one of them survived. And Chief Shew joins us this morning from running springs.
Good morning to you. Thanks for joining us.
And give me a sense of what happened. You were fighting the blaze at Lake Arrowhead. My understanding is that there were 20 people on your team, then yourself on top of that. What happened?
BATT. CHIEF DAVID SHEW, CALIF. DEPT. OF FORESTRY: We had been working on a fire line. Our attempt was to do a backfire along Highway 18 to the east of Lake Arrowhead. And as the fire was coming up in the morning as day broke, the fire gained in a tremendous higher intensity than had been burning throughout the night. We recognized that the fire was going to come roaring up the canyon that we were working on top of. The goal was to really try to keep the fire from impacting the land to the north of Highway 18.
Unfortunately, the power of the storm overtook us. We took shelter in our engines in a safety zone that we had pre-identified. And had to sit it out while the storm blew over us.
O'BRIEN: Give me a sense for those of us who truly have never been close to a fire, what exactly a firestorm looks like and feels like, and while you do that, I'm going to show a couple of the pictures that you took on your digital camera. So just how bad was it? what does it feel like?
SHEW: Well, of course, you can imagine it was very hot. We didn't anticipate that the intensity was going to be as bad as it was. We knew that the fire was coming up very hard up the hill. We anticipated it hitting and doing some area ignition that we call it. All the trees, all the vegetation around us would be burned. We parked well away from any of the nearest trees, approximately 100 feet, and as they began burning, the heat was so intense that it was impossible to even touch the windows on the engines almost even with your gloves on. It was very hot. The engines began filling up with smoke.
At first, it turned to total blackness from the cloud of smoke in front of the firestorm, and then it just turned into this incredible orangish-red glow that surrounded the engine, and then, slowly but, surely, it turned to more smoke and ash. And it took about 30 minutes before it could clear up, before we could even see the ground below the engine itself.
O'BRIEN: We're looking at a photograph where you are looking or someone is looking out of the window and you could just see clearly, it looks like the vehicle is engulfed in this either red smoke or fire. How scary was it? And I understand that this is what you do for a living, which is scary in and of itself. But how terrified were you at this point when you realized how close you are to being engulfed by flames?
SHEW: Well, as you mentioned, we do this for a living. And we take these safety precautions to make sure that we aren't in danger. None of us, I don't feel, think -- I don't think that any of us felt that we were really in any kind of a life-threatening situation. We felt very safe inside the engines, and we knew that we weren't going to have any injuries or problems with it. We were more in just complete awe of the intensity and the ferocity of the fire itself. It was really incredible just watching it come through, and it hit with much higher intensity than any of us anticipated. So, it was really almost more exciting than anything, although I don't think I care to go through it again.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I can imagine.
How close were the flames to you? Because from that photograph, it almost looks like they're right outside the window. And as you say, the windows were so hot, you couldn't touch them. Were the flames engulfing the vehicle? And explain to me how an engine can actually protect you from the fire. I mean, don't engines -- couldn't they possibly burn up?
SHEW: Well, that is a possibility. But we made sure that we positioned the engines far enough away from the burning trees that the radiant heat wouldn't cause that problem.
The actual flames themselves I don't believe impinged on any of the engines. We checked the engines out later. Everything was fine. We didn't even have any melted plastic on the engines. So everything seemed to be OK. We did go ahead and experience a lot of smoke in the engines. The wind itself was blowing so intensely that the engines were rocking back and forth. And so the flame front went through relatively quickly. The photo that you're looking at with the orangish color outside the engine is actually a result of just the glow of the fire from the smoke that was surrounding us. And you can see bits of burning embers that were swirling around the engine during the entire time we were in there.
O'BRIEN: You said it lasted 30 minutes -- we don't have a ton of time -- then did everybody get out of the engine and go right back to work?
SHEW: Well, we had radio communication also. So throughout the incident, I was able to contact each one of the individual engines and make sure that everybody was OK. By just getting reports back from them, I knew that all the firefighters were safe and OK. It was hot and it was smoky, and wasn't very pleasant to breathe in those engines. But I knew we were all right. After the 30 minutes and we could see the ground outside the engines, we decided to go ahead and move them back to a safer area where it was less smoky, and we did so, and got out and kind of regrouped, and all took stock of where we were and what we'd just been through, and everybody was fine.
O'BRIEN: Well, Battalion Chief David Shew, we're really glad to hear that. And I'm glad I had an opportunity to talk to you live this morning, as opposed to the alternative. That's some good news to report. So thanks for joining us.
SHEW: Sure. You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
