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California Burning; Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Holds Press Conference

Aired October 23, 2007 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures top of the hour in the CNN NEWSROOM here. Don lemon, world headquarters in Atlanta.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips.

We're following two live pictures for you. We are actually waiting for the governor of California to step up to the mikes out of Lake Arrowhead, California.

And, then, on the other side of the screen, these are live pictures out of Running Springs, California, not far from Los Angeles. It's in San Bernardino County. This house just caught fire. You can see how quickly, you know, those flames can take down these houses. It is absolutely unbelievable.

LEMON: Literally, while we were on the air, just a couple of minutes ago, as you were talking the producers came in and said look at this. A moment before, it was not on fire. Then it was all of a sudden it sparked.

And as we wait for the governor to walk up to this podium, we are going to bring in Chad Myers, who -- the governor is fairly close, Chad, so we may have to cut you off here.

We are going to talk about the winds here because you said this is upwind, right, this house that caught fire?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it appears to me, if you look off to the right where the wind is coming from, the wind is blowing from right to left across the screen there, that that vegetation there is not burned. The burn area actually came from behind the house. And that burn as it came in actually came -- didn't get blown downwind with the ashes.

I see the governor coming.

LEMON: Yes.

MYERS: And so we will get to that.

But Running Springs, I believe, this is still part of the Slide fire. Not so much part of the Lake Arrowhead fire.

And I think probably the governor has probably had aerial views of this, of this devastation.

LEMON: Yes. The governor has been touring Lake Arrowhead along with some other officials there.

MYERS: It's about 10 miles, less than that from this Running Springs fire we are looking at.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Yes. And obviously FEMA on the ground, they have their explicit orders to take care of this.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been doing what he's supposed to do with this. And so we are going to listen in now as he starts his press conference, Chad.

All right, Chad, we are going to get -- Kyra, we are going to get the sound fixed there, so that we can hear what the governor is saying.

PHILLIPS: We can update the numbers real quickly.

LEMON: Yes.

PHILLIPS: We know that there's at least 321,000 people that have been evacuated from their homes. "The L.A. Times" is reporting 500,000. The lieutenant governor said it is possible it could be somewhere in between that. They have not been able to confirm, and also two deaths reported now. The Forest Service reporting two civilians have died in these wildfires.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I think we can hear him now. Let's listen.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, CALIFORNIA: We have 16 fires right now. And we have more than 6,000 firefighters that are battling these fires. We have thousands of trucks out there working.

We have so far lost 750 homes statewide. And 68,000 homes are being threatened right now to be destroyed. We have so far one death and 18 firefighters have been injured. Four of them, I visited yesterday at a hospital in San Diego. They have severe burn wounds and so on.

And so we have, you know, had an unfortunate situation that you have three things come together, very dry areas, very hot weather, and then a lot of wind. And so this makes the perfect storm for the fire. And so, we have brave firefighters fighting all over the state of California.

I want to thank them very much for their courage, for their hard work, working 24 hours, around the clock. And we have the most experienced, the best trained firefighters in the world without any doubt and the best equipped firefighters in the world. I think we have fought so many fires in California. It is something that happens every year. Fires start even earlier than ever before. And so this is why we have great hopes that these fires will be put out as quickly as possible.

We have gotten tremendous help from everybody. The locals, the state and the federal government is working together. And yesterday I have spoken several times with President Bush, who is, you know, helped us to declare a state of emergency. For our state and for those seven counties where we have the fires, I have declared a state of emergency a few days ago already. So, that money is coming through to those states from the state -- for those counties from the state and also from the federal government, which is very important.

And unlike previous emergencies or natural disasters, this time everyone responded very quickly and there is a great coordination between everyone. I also want to thank law enforcement, the various different departments, for working very closely with the fire department and everyone coordinating in San Diego.

We have seen evacuations of over 300,000 people. Here, you have evacuation of more than 15,000 people and all of has been very smoothly. I visited the evacuation centers yesterday night until midnight. It is Qualcomm. You know, there was approximately 8,000 people there and they were treated well. We worked all afternoon yesterday to make sure that those evacuations centers get the food.

I mean, you have to think about sometimes the little things that fall through the crack, if there is enough baby formula there, for instance, in those places, because there's a lot of babies. Do they have enough diapers? Do they have toilet paper? Do they have cots? Do they have blankets? Do we have enough nurses and medical teams there because there's a certain percentage of people that always need medical attention?

We went to another place at Del Mar where we had 1,800 vulnerable citizens there from nursery homes that they had to be evacuated and they needed medical attention, so we had to get doctors there and nurses. We had to get ambulances there. We had to get medical facilities where they can be transported. Some of them needed their houses. Some of them had heart problems, diabetes and so on.

So, it is very important that you think about all those details when you have an emergency like that and when you have evacuations and fires and so on. But everyone worked together really well. We had a lot of volunteers and there was great spirit amongst all those people.

Now, here at this fire here, at the Grass Valley fire, we have 5,000 acres that burned so far. And I was told over 200 homes have been destroyed here. And I have seen some of the homes just now. And it is really sad when you see that. I mean, I'm heartbroken to see these kind of things, because these are people that have saved their money for many, many years and they finally got their home. They live in their homes and then all of a sudden, you know, from one hour to the next, those homes are destroyed.

So, I think that we have to do everything that we can to help those people on the state level, local level, and also federal level to get them the money to get back on their feet as quickly as possible. I think there's 1,500 homes that are threatened right now by the fires. There's homes being destroyed right now as we speak.

So, there's 500 firefighters that are fighting. So, we just came in with a helicopter from San Diego. And we flew over and got an aerial view of the fires. And I have to say that it is really one of the biggest fires that I have ever seen and very intense fires. So, I think it is very important that we get those tankers, those airplanes, those aircraft in here as quickly as possible.

They are ready go. They are ready to drop water. But, as you probably know, they can't take off right now because of the winds. So, we are just waiting for the winds to die down, so those air tankers can be used.

But I'm here to pay full attention to all of you. You should know that you are not out there by yourself fighting those fires, that the state is there to help you. I wanted to come here to put the spotlight on these fires, so that you get the state and federal help as quickly as possible also here and that we are going to help you then rebuild these areas as quickly as possible.

So, with that, I will leave it to you. First of all, let me just say to Senator Dutton (ph), I would like you to come up and say a few words here, because you have been very concerned. And you and I have talked about it on the phone. And so it is great to be here together with you and to deal with those fires.

Thank you.

Please welcome Senator Dutton.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Governor.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to thank you also for being a true man of action, because you said action, action, action. And, frankly, that's what we have here right now. I want to thank all the firefighters. I'm thrilled the governor took the time out of his busy schedule to get some firsthand information of what's going on here on our beloved mountain.

And, Governor, I just want to say these people here have really done a tremendous job up here. I'm very proud of our law enforcement, highway patrol sheriff, as well as the county fire and all the local agencies responding.

And to the people, I just want to say this is one of those times, too, that it is not over yet. We all need to work together. It is very important. We have been unfortunately through this drill before. And there's going to be some people in need of things.

So, I want people to start thinking about how they can help out individually, join together as a community to help those in need. We have got a lot of centers that are operational around the immediate area. We are going to need food. We are going to need clothing, bedding, things of that nature, housing, replacement housing. So I want everybody to start thinking about that now because we know it is going to be needed.

So, I want to thank you again, Governor, for being here. And, at this time, I want to introduce Anthony Adams (ph). This is his district as well.

So, Anthony?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

I, too, want to thank our governor for being here and just showcasing our community in a way that hopefully will bring resources to it in a needed and much appreciated way.

I also want to implore all of you to be involved. If you have not been personally devastated by the tragedy of these fires, then have you an opportunity to reach out to these communities via your donations, your time, your energy and your prayers. And I would implore you to do that to be a part of the solution. The state stands ready to assist you in every way.

But there's never a substitute for your own personal involvement and for the friendship and the care and support of a neighbor. So, I would encourage you to do that. And I thank you so much for everything that you do to help abate this incredible tragedy and make the lives of the people who have been devastated by it better. Thank you.

QUESTION: Governor?

(CROSSTALK)

SCHWARZENEGGER: All right. Yes.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) Orange County Fire Chief Prather is saying that state failed to implement the Santiago (ph) fire plan and that a great deal of support would have been available and a lot of this would have been preventable. He's saying that his crews are having to shelter in people's homes as a result of the state's inaction on the Santiago fire plan.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I'm not aware of that. But what I'm aware of is that everyone here is -- in San Diego, I have visited pretty much, I mean, all the fires. And so far everyone has been very complimentary about how well everyone worked together and how well coordinated everything is between the locals, the state and also the federal government, how quickly we responded to a state of emergency, so that money goes through the locals.

And I think that the one thing we have learned from the last tragedies, especially from the fire of 2003, that everyone responds much quicker, the way the law enforcement, the fire department, if it's the locals or the state or on the federal level, everyone came together very quickly. So, I'm very pleased with everything. And I'm very excited that everyone is working so well together this time. It's a quick response.

QUESTION: I just want to be clear. You are not familiar with the Santiago fire plan or you're not familiar with his position (INAUDIBLE)

SCHWARZENEGGER: I'm saying I'm very happy that everyone is working so well together and there's just great enthusiasm, and that -- and we will do everything we can to be one family and help each other, because we want to make sure that all those communities will not get stuck by themselves, that we will help them rebuild and fight those fires.

QUESTION: Governor, you have been briefed by the head of several local agencies here. Is there anything that they have requested that can't be made happen?

SCHWARZENEGGER: To change the weather.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHWARZENEGGER: I think that everyone has, you know, felt that they have gotten a lot of help from everybody.

And, yesterday, we saw that again how quickly that the cots came together and the blankets and the food. I mean, we called, for instance, the Grocers Association of California. And, man, within -- literally within minutes, the trucks rolled out with the water supply to the various different places where people were staying overnight.

I think that the way the blankets came through as quick as possible, and, like I said, the baby formulas and all of those kind of things. So, I thought that people fell that everyone got together and came together. But everyone at the same time complains about the weather.

But we can't do anything about it. We have to just pray that the wind goes away, because as soon as we have -- get rid of the wind, then the firefighters can really put an end to the fires all over the place.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Governor, how much air support is available when the winds die down?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Pardon me?

QUESTION: How much air support is available when the winds die down?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, we have 90 craft so far here in California. And we have gotten, like I said, six more from the federal government. So, there's a lot of help coming in.

And, again, I also want to let you know that, after the 2003 fires, we made agreements with the neighboring states so that if there's something happening there in those neighboring states where they need our help, we are ready for helping them. And if we need their help, they help us.

And they have been sending us manpower. They have been sending us, you know, aircraft. And they have been sending us equipment and resources and so on. So this has also been very helpful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last question.

QUESTION: Are there enough firefighters? And has the Iraq war deployment (INAUDIBLE) California and other areas (INAUDIBLE)

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, we can -- we are very happy we have General Wade here. He can address that, that as soon as I asked the general to put some extra resources and make them available, make manpower available, the general jumped into action. And he can talk about this briefly.

QUESTION: What's your name, sir?

SCHWARZENEGGER: General Wade.

MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM WADE, ADJUTANT GENERAL, CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD: Yes, Major General William Wade. I'm the adjutant general for the California National Guard.

When the governor called, the first thing he said is to pull soldiers and airmen off Operation Jump Start on the border. That's what he said he would do should something strike our state. That's exactly what we did. And we were able to deploy 200 soldiers and airmen right from the border into action within hours.

We still have a very strong Guard. We have at least 15,000 soldiers and airmen still to be called on. They are performing very well, doing support duties down here in the south area with helping do evacuations, providing security, helping move supplies. And whatever they are called on to do, we are prepared to do it at this time.

QUESTION: Governor, what do you say to people who don't evacuate and don't follow the mandatory orders?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I think it is extremely important. And I always say to the people, if you are told to evacuate, evacuate. Don't question anything. Just get out of your house, because safety is the most important thing.

And I think that law enforcement in each one of those fires has made sure that there are no burglaries or anything like this going on while you are gone from your property. I think that why I say this is so important that you have this great kind of working relationship and everyone came together, because law enforcement is extremely in these kind of evacuation procedures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you very much. Thank you. LEMON: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holding a press conference there, updating some of the numbers here, the number of fires, the number of homes that are evacuated, the number of people, exactly what they are doing, the resources they have in place, basically saying that he's very happy with the response in all of this, and also saying they are thinking about little things, like diapers and baby formula and blankets, things that may often get overlooked that people might need.

He updated some of the numbers. I'm not going to attempt to tell you what he said about the number of fires and all of that, because it is so fluid. It keeps changing. And every time we try to update you with some numbers, we get higher numbers.

But we know at least 500,000 people have been evacuated in these fires, and then many more may have to be evacuated if the weather situation does not correct itself, meaning the winds slow down or there's some rain. And the governor, you heard him say, pray for that.

And one pharmacist in Lake Arrowhead slept in her store last night. We are going to talk to her in the CNN NEWSROOM coming up.

PHILLIPS: And we are looking at live pictures there not only from Lake Arrowhead, California, but these here in Running Springs, California.

We had showed you about, oh, 25 minutes ago the fire was sort of creeping up on this house. Look how quickly those flames have engulfed this home in Running Springs, Georgia, or -- sorry. I keep saying Georgia, because that's where we are right now -- Running Springs, California. I apologize.

But you see how quickly that fire just takes over these homes. This is a little mountain community in the San Bernardino Mountains, Running Springs, California. And you can see how the wildfires are affecting people's homes so quickly, so furiously.

LEMON: This is the one that just had started about 20 minutes ago, right.

PHILLIPS: Right.

And we have some important Web sites and telephone numbers to give you now as well. The state has posted all kinds of information and updates on those fires, www.fire.california.gov. People in San Diego County are asked to dial 211 for any information. There's another info line for the city. That's area code 619-570-1070.

And then to the north in Los Angeles County, that's actually where you were seeing the Running Springs, California video, the city of Malibu has this number set up, area code 310-456-9982. There's also a Web site, www.lacounty.info with fire updates, numbers to call, all kinds of other information. L.A. residents can also call 211 for more information.

And then people outside of the area can dial this number, 1-800- 980-4990.

LEMON: We have you covered at all angles here at CNN. We have got you on television, also on the Web. If you would like to continue watching continuing coverage of the California fires from your laptop, just check out our online network, CNN.com, live. You can send us an I-Report or see others. That's at CNN.com.

PHILLIPS: A TV news reporter live on the scene of a house fire, it happens all the time, right? But this story has a pretty interesting twist. That's the reporter's house that is burning -- details straight ahead from the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: House after house after house burned to the ground, that's the scene on the northern fringes of San Diego in the devastated town of Rancho Bernardo.

We keep checking in our Dan Simon. He is there. He's bringing us updates on the conditions.

Dan, what's the latest? I understand there's some crews moving in.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Some utility crews are here. They are shutting off all the gas lines. Obviously, it is critical that they do that.

You can see, I'm standing in a burned-out house. And the fire still smoldering in some places. And if we pan the camera, you can actually see, as you mentioned, row after row. We have seven houses here totally leveled by this fire.

And you know what? People who live in this neighborhood, they probably have no idea that they lost their homes. That's why a local city council person is setting up a Web site. You can go to sandiego.gov. That apparently is going to be up and running later this afternoon. There's a section on that Web site that you can click on and it is going to actually list addresses of homes that have been destroyed.

So, folks can log on to that site. It is going to be constantly updated and let people know which, in fact, homes have been destroyed. We talked to that city council person earlier today. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN MAIENSCHEIN, CITY COUNCIL: Right now, I'm going through this. My staff and I are going through and we're making a list of all the homes that have been destroyed, and we're going to post it on our Web site, so people who have been evacuated to these evacuation centers will able to find out whether their house is still standing.

SIMON: So, people who don't know if their homes are still here, they can go to the Web site to see if, in fact, they have been destroyed? MAIENSCHEIN: Exactly. Unfortunately, they're at these evacuation centers, and they are worried, and they just want to know. Even if their house has been destroyed, they want to know that. And so we are getting this information out to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: And, again, that's sandiego.gov.

But let me stress, if you go there right now, you're not going to see anything. It's going to be up later this afternoon. And here's the thing. There's only going to be probably a fraction of the houses that have been destroyed on that Web site, but at least it is a start, until folks can actually start coming back to the various neighborhoods to take a look for themselves to see if they lost their homes.

And, obviously, it is going to be some time before people are going to be allowed to do that. The mayor says it is just too unsafe. But, of course, people are going to be anxious to come back. But they will get the green light probably in a few days -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. We will keep checking in with you. Dan Simon, appreciate all the hard work. Thank you.

LEMON: We have been showing you pictures of the firefighting effort here and those planes that are coming in and carrying water into those fires. This is Mount Miguel, California. And just moments ago, we were monitoring this. And we could see a chopper there dropping off some of that water.

Mount Miguel, California, is in Spring Valley, in the Spring Valley area of California. And just look at the visibility there. Not much. And a fixed-wing aircraft, this was a problem early on for these firefighting efforts, because it was so windy, the fixed-wing aircraft were not allowed to go up in the air. They have the potential to drop the most water, because they have the biggest body and can carry the most water. Couldn't go up in the beginning.

And so that -- they ran into some problems with that. Running Springs, California, courtesy KCAL. We also want to thank our affiliate KABC for their pictures as well. We are going to talk to our Chad Myers about all of this, about the weather conditions, coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM.

You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Southern California Burns for a third straight day. And there's no relief in sight.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips.

LEMON: And I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. The Associated Press reports, a second person has been killed in the wildfires. At least 44 people are injured.

PHILLIPS: And more than half-a-million -- half-a-million people, rather, have been ordered to evacuate. That number just keeps rising. More than 360,000 acres have already been burned.

LEMON: We just heard minutes ago from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says evacuees are being well taken care of. He also says massive air tankers are standing by to dump water, but can't take off yet because of the high winds.

And our meteorologist, Chad Myers, is going to join us now from the CNN Weather Center with the very latest on the forecast -- Chad, we saw those fixed wing aircraft. In the beginning, the winds were so high they couldn't go up. We see a few up today. We just mentioned that the governor talked about a lot of them can't go up still because of the wind. And then we saw some of the -- what do they call those -- super scoopers going in Mount Miguel, as well. That's Running Springs. That's KCAL. And then Mount Miguel, the super scoopers, as well, going up and grabbing something water there.

Tell us about the wind situation.

MYERS: Well, the wind situation, too -- when it starts to lay down, you can get, obviously, you can get more planes in the air. But then when that happens, sometimes you lose daylight. And they really don't want to fly these things in the dark. This is a very treacherous and, in some places very, very rugged area. You don't want these planes in there trying to find -- trying to make their way around in the dark. And so there's that cutoff. As soon as you lose -- as soon as you really lose daylight, you lose an awful lot of other potential.

One of the amazing things we saw yesterday -- and we're still seeing it today -- is that you can actually see this smoke on the radar itself. The radars are confused. There's so much smoke in the air that it thinks -- the radars think that it's actually raining.

Right there, that's Running Springs. You just saw that fire there live from KCAL. There's Lake Arrowhead. There are actually two fires -- one slide fire and then the one up near Lake Arrowhead near the Grass -- the Grass Valley Country Club.

Look at where this smoke is going now. So if we can see it on the radar, obviously, you're going to be breathing it, too. San Bernardino down to Riverside, all the way down to Pomona. And then one more. This is the Orange County Fire here just to the, oh, I would say, maybe 10 miles east of Santa Ana -- in Irvine, really, although it's almost out toward the canyons. But the smoke is blowing there toward Huntington Beach. So the air quality today being very much affected by all of this smoke in the air. And when the smoke gets so thick, the planes have to fly around that, too. So there are so many things. And the ground crews have to be careful because the winds are still so absolutely treacherous today.

LEMON: Yes. MYERS: Here are the Springs at this point. Big Bear Lake, 22 miles per hour. These are sustained winds. And the gusts are probably at least another 10 on top of that. And you're going to get 10, 20, 30 mile per hour gusts on top of that, and that's going to blow sparks around. This isn't over by any stretch. The winds are dying off. We're not going to get 100 mile per hour gusts today. But the winds are still enough to make more fire -- Don.

LEMON: Hey, Chad, don't go anywhere. But I want to take this picture and talk to you about it. There's a -- we have a live picture of a house burning now in Lake Arrowhead.

I'm not sure, guys, you'll have to tell me -- is this the same house that we saw catch fire just a little bit ago?

This is a different home. This home -- I mean, obviously, going up very fast. We saw that other one, Chad -- I mean within minutes. I would say 20 minutes and the house was completely destroyed.

But, again, this is courtesy of KABC. Lake Arrowhead, California there's a house on fire...

MYERS: You know what I saw a lot yesterday, Don, which was very disturbing -- and this is -- this is personal protection. Homes were burning and the surrounding trees were just fine. The surrounding brush was not even burned. You have to do some things when you live in areas like this that are prone to fires to protect what you have in the first place. And there are the options of not putting wood shakes on your roof.

LEMON: Yes.

MYERS: I mean, literally think about the shake roof at 4 percent relative humidity. One small spark, it's gone.

LEMON: Right.

MYERS: So people are putting -- they use the -- they use the tiles and they use steel rather than the wood shakes, which are obviously very pretty, but are obviously very dangerous to have in this kind of area.

LEMON: Yes, Chad, I could talk to you about this all day. You're very knowledgeable about this and we appreciate your information.

We want to get to someone who had to actually spend the night in her store -- a pharmacy in Lake Arrowhead.

Her name is Michelle Dresser.

And I understand that you have been told now that you have to evacuate, Michelle, again.

Is that correct?

MICHELLE DRESSER, LAKE ARROWHEAD, CALIFORNIA: Yes. We -- the security buy just came by and told us it was a mandatory evacuation out of the Lake Arrowhead Village area. So we've been asked to leave.

LEMON: You've been asked to leave. This is your second time. You stayed in your store last night.

Were you evacuated from your home?

DRESSER: My area was evacuated last night. I saw it on the Internet and so I loaded up my two dogs, two cats and the turtle. And we all came here to the store last night and we hung out at the store.

LEMON: You sound, obviously, a little excited.

DRESSER: Yes. This is the second time we've gone through this in four years. And the last time I was off the mountain when the fire hit and, you know, it was evac -- we were evacuated for a couple of weeks. And so nobody knew what was going on.

So this year, I've kind of hung on until the last minute to make sure that everything was secure and safe -- and, of course, my customers. And so today, now that all my customers know I've been here, they've been all calling off the hook, seeing if I'm OK, and we're OK up here, and, you know, the village hasn't burned down.

LEMON: Yes.

You are going to have to go somewhere else, but, also, we have been talking about just the -- how people have been reacting there. Your store is officially closed. But you have been helping people -- staying inside your store, helping them on the phone, getting their prescriptions transferred.

Is that really sort of, I guess, the way everyone is reacting to this?

DRESSER: Yes, I would say so. I've stayed here just because I feel that I'm, you know, I'm an important part of this community, as far as, you know, their health needs and making sure that everybody has their medication. In fact, the minute that anybody sees my car pull up, they're banging on my door, you know, wanting something. And, of course, today I took the phones off my answering service and so I've got four lines that have been ringing off the hook all morning.

LEMON: Yes. And people can hear you. And I can sort of see -- I can hear and feel a little bit the excitement there in your voice, because you're speaking very quickly. If you can sort of just explain to our viewers who are sitting at home watching what the heck all of this is like for you and for all of the people who have to evacuate and who may lose their homes.

DRESSER: Oh, it's -- oh, it's crazy. We're surrounding by fire on both sides -- on the east and on the west side. And I had some customers call me yesterday, saying that they didn't even know the fire was even there. And it swept through the area at 6:00 in the morning.

I've got a customer right here who didn't even know that it had even happened until somebody came banging on the door that there was a fire going by.

And now, you look out the window and you see this gigantic, you know, smoke plume going up to the east of us, which is over in Running Springs. And the helicopters have been coming over, scooping up the water with those great big helicopter tanks. And then they've been flying those DC-9 big planes. One flew over here this morning.

So it's been -- it's been quite the eventful past couple of days.

LEMON: Yes. We can certainly understand.

DRESSER: And Standard Brothers is open, so there are (AUDIO GAP), which is one of the reasons why I stayed here. At least we can go over and get some food and...

LEMON: Do you know where you're going to go next?

DRESSER: I'm probably going to be going -- either I'm going to be going off the mountain. I'll probably be -- I've got to find someplace that can accept two dogs, two cats and a turtle. So more than likely, it will be hi, mom -- is anybody home?

LEMON: Two dogs, two cats and a turtle.

And, Michelle Dresser, hey, best of luck to you.

DRESSER: Thank you so much for calling us. I really appreciate it.

LEMON: Yes. We appreciate you, obviously.

DRESSER: Yes. (INAUDIBLE)...

LEMON: And we are feeling for you. The entire country is thinking about you guys out there.

Thanks again, Michelle.

DRESSER: And thanks so much for calling.

LEMON: All righty.

DRESSER: OK. Bye.

LEMON: Southern California folks on fire right now. And according to the experts, it's going to get worse before it gets better. We have complete coverage right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: 3:41 Eastern time.

Here are some of the stories we're working on right now in the CNN NEWSROOM. President Bush says Iran could be able to hit the U.S. with a missile within eight years. And he says that's why Europe needs a U.S.-led missile defense shield ASAP. The president was quoting intelligence estimates.

Russia is against the shield plan. Its foreign minister says North Korea, not Iran, poses a threat.

Space Shuttle Discovery is away -- headed for a two week mission at the International Space Station. It's being called the most complex orbital construction mission yet. This is also the first time that women are in charge of both the Space Station and the shuttle.

From Florida's space coast to its sun coast. This is a mall parking lot in Fort Myers after a small plane crashed into a couple of parked cars. No one was hurt. Right now, it's unclear what went wrong.

LEMON: Back to the wildfires in California now and San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, home to the Chargers -- home to thousands of fire evacuees, at least for now. And at least for now, they're glad to be there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We grabbed our cat and the boys and woke them up out of bed and grabbed some of our personal belongings -- pictures, memories -- and threw them in the car as quick as we could and got out of there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just kept, you know, peeking up and out of our back window and seeing that it was just getting bigger and closer. And, finally, around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, we decided it's too close and we had to get our kids out and wake up the neighbors as we left.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How frightening was that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, it's very scary. You know, you never think that you're going to be in this kind of a position.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're -- we're in the house trying to make sure we have everything. For the first time, it actually became mandatory for us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So where do you go from here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have no clue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they say we...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We haven't been -- we're just waiting for someone to tell us we can go back up. We're not sure when that is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've noticed a really calm spirit. We feel safe, which is really nice after thinking of what happened in Katrina and so forth. So we feel very safe here. And, hopefully it will be safe for a while.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Many of the thousands of people affected by the fires have been e-mailing us to let friends and family know that they are OK.

PHILLIPS: And some of you also giving us amazing pictures of what you're actually going through. Hayward from Escondido wrote this: "We drove by a huge wall of flames in our Hummer. Thank God we made it out."

LEMON: And this is Michael. He's of Carmel Valley. And he wrote this: "I was evacuated around 9:00 a.m. , while wind gusts blew down trees all over the neighborhood. We headed north to Oceanside, where my parents live, and got out of the thick smoke that covered Carmel Valley, Del Mar and Solana Beach."

PHILLIPS: Carolyn of Lake Arrowhead, California says: "We are still here, despite the evacuations. This happened three years ago with the old fire. And we're watering our two homes down near the lake. I have power and Internet still. We don't know how long it is going to last, though. It's pretty bad."

LEMON: And if you'd like to share your stories with us and your pictures or your video, please log on to CNN.com/ireport.

And if you're watching the coverage of the fires and you want to help the victims, log on to our Web site and impact your world. The link is CNN.com/impact. Click on California fires under natural disasters.

PHILLIPS: Well, growing up in San Diego, as you can imagine, Don, I'm getting lots of e-mails and pictures from friends and family of how the wildfires are affecting...

LEMON: Are most OK out there?

PHILLIPS: ...the city.

Most of them are OK. We're actually going to talk to one of my friends, Gary Alstadt, coming up after the break. He's been an I- Reporter for us.

LEMON: Oh, OK.

PHILLIPS: He got some pictures for us as soon as he saw the wildfires. We're going to talk to him and kind of get an update. He's sort of in La Mesa, Mount McGill area. We had some pictures -- oh, here we go. Perfect. Look at that -- Mount McGill, California. Gary doesn't live far from there. And then this is Orange County, California, just outside of Los Angeles.

LEMON: Yes.

I can't wait to hear his story.

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PHILLIPS: Live pictures now, you can see, coming from our affiliate out of the San Diego area, as well as the Los Angeles area. KABC, our affiliate out of L.A., bringing us live pictures of the wildfires there in Orange County, California. And then you can see the efforts. They're dropping water -- or buckets of water -- via helicopters there in Mount Miguel, California. And Mount McGill is actually not far from where we're going to talk to my friend, Gary Alstadt. He lives about 10 miles, actually, from Qualcomm Stadium. He and his family are actually staying home for right now because of the dangers of the wildfires. He's had the warnings. Gary is a good friend of mine for a number of years. His wife is actually one of my mom's top students there from San Diego State University.

He joins us by phone in La Mesa, California.

Gary, I got your e-mail and your pictures.

Tell me what you first saw when you woke up this morning at 4:00 a.m. .

GARY ALSTADT, L.A. (PH) MESA, CALIFORNIA: Well, my wife actually came out and she was on the couch. She couldn't sleep. And then when she did wake up on the couch, she saw the captioning on the TV that said that we're -- that Mount Miguel was on fire. And so she looked out the back window and saw that those -- that Mount Miguel was actually on fire. So she came back and woke me up and kind of said what should we do?

And so, you know, finally I got up and I went and looked. I said wow, I need to take pictures of this. And she was actually a little bit frustrated, I think, because she wanted me to take pictures of things in the house first. But I went outside and took some shots and I sent those off to you.

PHILLIPS: And I think we've got those or I don't -- and I'll ask the producers, maybe, if we can look at these live pictures not far from you, where you can -- we have a -- there's a halo (ph) in the air actually dropping water on the wildfires not far from your house.

We'll bring up your pictures in a minute, Gary.

But, you know, in a situation like this -- I mean you and I went to competing high schools. We grew up in this city. I don't ever remember having to prepare for something this drastic.

You're there now.

Once you found out how intense this was, how did you brief the family?

Actually, here. We're looking at the photos right now. Tell me about these photos and if you guys got a little nervous when you saw how the flames were not far from the house.

ALSTADT: Well, I got a little nervous. But the wind was actually blowing due west. And we're just a little north from there. And so I thought, when I saw the smoke -- because you could actually see the glow from the fire pushing the smoke toward the ocean. And I thought well, I don't think it's going to come our direction. And I figured we could just wait for the reverse 911 call to actually -- if we needed to evacuate.

PHILLIPS: And I want to talk about the evacuation for a minute. And I hope you don't mind, Gary -- I hope you're comfortable talking about this. And I want to ask this because your family is very unique in many ways. You are a quadriplegic. You're wife is a paraplegic. You have two kids.

When a situation like this arises, set me straight.

Can you get things together and as quick as anybody else or do you have to prepare differently?

Do you have to be thinking about things that -- I mean I would, you know, differently than, say, someone who is not -- is not immobile by a wheelchair?

ALSTADT: Well, I think we're pretty set up -- we're set up pretty well here where, you know, we both drive. So we would take both cars. You know, and we're pretty normal in those respects to where, you know, like anybody else, we would have some medications that we would normally take with us, you know?

And we would have the same important papers, because we're homeowners and everything else. And so, you know, it's just where we would go and if they're able to -- if they would have the right access for us.

PHILLIPS: Got it. I know those kids take on a lot of responsibility, as well.

ALSTADT: They...

PHILLIPS: And you all work amazingly well as a family.

ALSTADT: They do. They're great, yes.

PHILLIPS: They are.

Gary, thanks so much for reaching out.

I appreciate the pictures.

I'm glad you're OK.

Keep me posted, OK, because I know my family will want to know how you guys are doing.

ALSTADT: OK.

Thanks, Kyra.

I'll talk to you soon.

PHILLIPS: All right.

Gary Alstadt there, one of my friends -- family friends, in La Mesa, not far from where I went to high school. The pretty amazing family. He's always on top of things. He's always following the news.

LEMON: Exactly.

PHILLIPS: He's always taking pictures. You know, he's an I- Reporter now with us, so -- his wife is already an important part of our family.

LEMON: Yes.

PHILLIPS: So there you go. Now he's helping us with CNN.

LEMON: I saw you working with the computer over there and I said she must be talking to someone with her family or e-mailing them.

PHILLIPS: Yes, it's amazing...

LEMON: It gives you some solace, at least.

PHILLIPS: Everybody is checking in, right?

And so far, everybody is OK, so.

LEMON: Good. We're glad. We're glad. And we hope it continues to stay that way, right?

PHILLIPS: Yes. Exactly.

LEMON: Absolutely.

So, mom's out of town, just so you know. She's not dealing with this. But dad -- dad's working the phones for us. So when Kyra gets here tomorrow, you're going to be well-prepared.

PHILLIPS: That's right. He's pre-producing everything for us.

LEMON: Yes.

PHILLIPS: We've got all kinds of things to set up, but we're going to try and cover all the angles tomorrow.

LEMON: Yes.

Let's bring Chad Myers in, Kyra...

PHILLIPS: OK.

LEMON: ...and talk to him about the winds in all of this. We saw that house in Orange County just moments ago. I think we have it live -- Chad.

MYERS: We did. Yes.

LEMON: We lost the live picture.

MYERS: Yes, we actually lost it.

LEMON: But you've got -- I see you've got the wind meters right there, so talk to us about that.

MYERS: Yes, 20, 25 miles per hour up in the mountains and they're coming up, now. Every gust that I see is a little bit higher than the one before. We're going to get to a point -- 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 tonight -- where that is going to be where we go to the highest spot -- the highest gust. Then we're going to start to taper off a little bit.

And this is -- this has just turned. We just turned this tape for you. This is the house you guys were seeing. Orange County, which is a long -- it's a very big area. But this is very close to extreme Eastern Irvine; also to about Lake Forest. I can't get them to zoom out far enough for me to figure out exactly where the home is here. But clearly a very large structure on fire. And that wind is blowing right toward the John Wayne Airport, right over Irvine. The air quality in Irvine today very low. Particulates in the air, about 247. A bad day is about 50. So it really is almost an unhealthy condition downhill from this.

And this is -- when we zoomed into this -- what a terrible shot here. Boy, if you're the homeowner and you're watching this on TV, I just -- I'm very sorry. And I'm -- it's gotten now over a thousand structures, a lot like this -- some bigger, some smaller -- that have been lost in this fire. And the winds continue to keep it out of control. The biggest number, Don, I've seen is about 20 to 30 percent contained, and that was up in the Canyon Fire, up near Malibu. We know that that fire is a little bit more contained than some of these other fires through the canyons. And, boy, the winds continue to blow.

LEMON: Yes.

And you know what?

You mentioned that, Chad. And it's really sad if that is someone's home and they're watching it on television.

MYERS: Right.

LEMON: But what can you do?

This is all happening right here. You mentioned John Wayne Airport, Santa Ana. If you're going into that area, thank you.

Laguna Beach, any of those areas...

MYERS: And this just Flight Explorer. Flight Explorer still has the planes coming in, so.

LEMON: Yes. You're going to fly right over that.

OK, Chad.

Thank you very much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

LEMON: We're going to turn now to CNN's Wolf Blitzer. PHILLIPS: Let's check in with him and see what's happening in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

Of course, he'll be talking about the fires there in Southern California -- hi, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": Yes. We're going to do a lot on that.

In addition to keeping all of our viewers up to speed on what's going on with those fires, we're going to be speaking with Maria Shriver. She's the first lady of California. She's also hosting a rare discussion with the spouses of the presidential candidates. We'll get her take on what's going on involving that, as well as the fires.

Also, as far as the fires are concerned, we're going to go inside Qualcomm Stadium out in San Diego. That's the home of the San Diego Chargers. But we're watching that very, very closely because it's now filling up with evacuees. Thousands of people, as you know, have been forced out of their homes.

FEMA moving right in -- hoping to avoid another Katrina-like situation. Tonight, we're "Keeping Them Honest". We're going to find out what their plan is and whether the federal government will do enough. All that, guys, coming up, and a lot more in "THE SITUATION ROOM".

LEMON: All right, Wolf.

Thanks.

PHILLIPS: The closing bell and a wrap of all the action on Wall Street straight ahead.

Stay with us.

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PHILLIPS: Stay tuned to CNN for more coverage of the California wildfires. Anderson Cooper will be there live, taking you to the front lines of this epic battle against the elements. It's a special edition of "A.C. 360," tonight, 8:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

The closing bell is about to ring on Wall Street.

LEMON: (COUGHING)

PHILLIPS: Hopefully, Don is not going to gag.

You need to get a little water there?

LEMON: A little water (INAUDIBLE).

PHILLIPS: All right, Susan Lisovicz, help us out here.

Let's take a look at the final trading day. SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra and Don.

Well, I just wanted to continue and just sort of recap some of the things that we're talking about in California. And that is a lot of industry being affected by these terrible wildfires.

First of all, Sony Electronics -- its headquarters in San Diego closed. Flames came within a few hundred yards of its campus there. We have the Port of San Diego closed. There are some ships that are allowed, if conditions allow it.

Of course, Qualcomm Stadium now converted to -- to a place of last resort for thousands of residents who are displaced. The San Diego Chargers are practicing for Sunday's game in Arizona at the Cardinals' facilities. No word yet on whether their Sunday game, scheduled at Qualcomm Stadium, will be played somewhere else.

Some of San Diego's best known tourist attractions closed. We have -- the zoo is still open, but some of the parks -- the natural wildlife parks -- are closed. And, in fact, some endangered animals are -- in fact, like the California condor -- are being taken and removed to safer places.

One really great story we haven't gotten to today, Kyra and Don, is that the nation's largest home lender, Countrywide Financial, said it is going to spend up to $16 billion in loans to help out people who were going to see their rates reset by the end of the year. This is being targeted -- 80,000 borrowers who faced default. So, obviously, great news for those people.

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