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Progress Made in Southern California Fires

Aired October 24, 2007 - 13:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Our breaking news coverage of the California wildfires continues this hour, and here's the very latest for you.
My colleague, Kyra Phillips, will join us in just a minute.

Some relief. Some progress. Words we've been waiting to hear for four days. Shifting Santa Ana winds are helping firefighters, who have nearly contained three major wildfires in L.A. County. They've also reopened some evacuated neighborhoods in San Diego County.

But as you can see from these live pictures, these pictures that you're looking at there, they have a very long fight ahead of them. Wildfires have now burned more than 412,000 acres across Southern California, forced more than 900,000 people to flee and destroyed almost 1,500 homes.

Damage and destruction in San Diego County alone could top $1 billion.

This morning, President Bush signed a federal disaster declaration. He visits that region tomorrow.

The Harris fire, unlike all the others, well, it is a killer. Burning in San Diego County, it's blamed for the single death reported so far in Southern California.

Let's get straight to CNN's Sean Callebs. He is in Spring Valley with the very latest for us -- Sean.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, you're exactly right. We're out here. And to give you an idea just how big this is, we're told there are 800 firefighters alone on this Harris fire. The figures that we have are up-to-date. That is more than 10 percent of all the firefighters who are deployed down in this area.

It is going to be another hot one. There's not a whole lot of wind right now. The ocean is that way. The canyons, up this way. So you have the wind coming together. That's causing some problems.

To put this in perspective, a gentleman we've been waiting to speak with for some time, Captain Scott McLean.

Thanks for joining us here this morning. Tell me what you can. There's a house right on top of that mountain up there. And you said that's the poster boy for what not to do. How difficult has it been for you guys?

CAPT. SCOTT MCLEAN, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY AND FIRE PROTECTION: The one on the right where you see the draw of the fire, is influenced by draws and goes right up the hill.

As far as the weather, it's been very dicey. The shift change in the wind has been rather dramatic. You cannot predict something like that in this area. We'll get lines cut. We'll get our defenses down, and the wind changes and goes the other way.

CALLEBS: Things look great right now. The smoke seems to be going up. Is that deceiving?

MCLEAN: That's deceiving. It looked great yesterday morning. We had a few thousand acres blow up last night. The night before, it was a little worse, of course, with the weather condition. It's progressively getting better throughout the week, as far as weather and the winds and whatnot. It blew up and doubled in size two nights ago.

So it's very difficult. We have a third of the resources on the fire that we usually have, just because of all the major incidents that are going on. And we're getting crews and equipment and various other equipment in on a daily and hourly basis.

CALLEBS: You guys are exhausted. We've talked to firefighters who have been working 20 hours since Sunday.

MCLEAN: ... They're still here, since the initial attack. They're still here.

CALLEBS: What do you tell people who, the second you get out of your vehicle, come up to you and say, "When can I get back home? I need to get back to my house."

MCLEAN: We try to explain to them the hazards. We are there for their safety and their life. We cannot allow them to go back in, because of the power lines down, different rockslides. There's just too many hazards. There's no power up there, so there's no water. Just too much for them to deal with right now.

CALLEBS: In California, you can't force someone to leave his or her home.

MCLEAN: Right.

CALLEBS: Have you run into cases like that? Have there been any injuries?

MCLEAN: There's been 21 injuries to civilians up to this point in time that we're aware of. We have had six firefighter injuries, four due to a rescue of a family that was caught unaware by the fire because it moved so fast initially.

There has been other folks that had opted to stay on the fire, in the fire lines, in the fire area, because they just didn't want to leave their residence. I've gone up there. I've done welfare checks yesterday, trying to get those folks to leave, because the family has requested it.

I've gone and checked on other folks. I've requested two different families to leave yesterday because of the fires coming their way.

CALLEBS: Is that the sound of success?

MCLEAN: That's a sound of joy right now, with the aircraft: the ability to get in where it's not smoky. Their drops are hitting their mark because of the wind is not there.

Our aircraft, in general, we don't like to put on a fire that has winds of more than 30 miles per hour. That's kind of that gray area we try to use. Because simply, the aircraft can fly in the winds. That's not an issue. It's dropping that water, as you can see. That helicopter will come in, point its mark, and it will drop on where it needs to drop.

In the wind, you make the drop. The wind takes the water sideways, or retardant.

CALLEBS: Right. Captain, thank you for joining us. Best of luck. You guys are getting high marks from everybody we've talked to here. And that's probably about the best praise you can get.

MCLEAN: Oh, yes.

CALLEBS: Best of luck to you out there. Be safe.

Don, it's -- you heard it from him. It is a deceiving day. They don't know exactly what is going to happen. All we know -- all we know for sure is the conditions are simply bone dry up there. It just takes a spark. It just takes the wind to move one way or the other.

They may have the upper hand right now. But today is the beginning of what they know is going to be yet another long day -- Don.

LEMON: And did I hear him say it was the sound of joy up there, the helicopter, dropping the...?

CALLEBS: The helicopter going in, yes. We just saw those begin to make their way in here, I'd say, within the last half hour. And certainly, that's got the attention of a lot of the evacuees, and I'm certain, it's got the attention of the beleaguered firefighters who have to don this heavy gear, climb around this rugged mountain, do what they can to try and knock down the flames.

When they do get a chance to come back here and kick back, people just want to come up and say, "When, when, when?" And it's a question no one can answer.

LEMON: Yes. We know it's what they signed up for, but it's still pretty heroic. Sean Callebs, thank you so much for that. We'll continue to check back with you throughout the day, as well.

My colleague, Kyra Phillips, has returned to her hometown of San Diego to get the personal side of the story for us, and already she's been delivering that.

Kyra, what's going on now?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: Well, speaking about delivering, Don, my very first job growing up, when I was in junior high school, was a paper route here in San Diego. And I used to deliver the "Union- Tribune". And I used to always run late, because I used to like to read the headlines and read the paper. And I was always running behind.

I know. Sounds like me, right?

LEMON: Yes, absolutely.

PHILLIPS: So, I've been finding -- finding myself reading the local paper once again. But it's quite a different headline today: "Help from Above. The toll: 500,000 evacuated, 300,000 acres charred, 1,300 buildings destroyed."

Help from above. And it's talking about the firefighting efforts out there where those wildfires are. And they were wildfires that I saw as I was flying in last night. And it broke my heart, because this is where I grew up. And to see that type of devastation, it's truly heartbreaking. And just talking to my friends and my family and what everybody is going through here.

But I will say what's happening at Qualcomm Stadium. I told you earlier, it used to be Jack Murphy Stadium when I was growing up. I used to go to the Padres games, the Chargers games. I saw my first concert here.

It's turned into an unbelievably well-orchestrated, oiled machine. Anything that anybody could possibly need for survival is here. And there are possibly up to 20,000 people, we are told, that are here right now.

And it's calm. And it's organized. You can get food. You can get water. You can get any type of service that you need. And a part of the volunteer effort, you've got at least 13,000 volunteers that are here and the majority from San Diego and the churches and the military.

And right across from here, not but five minutes, is the church that I grew up in, First United Methodist. And it's a church my parents are still very involved with today.

And coming up, we're actually going to talk to my two pastors, who are here and organizing volunteers that have been serving food, offering crisis counseling. So we'll be able to get a bit of an inside track to what the community is doing on the church side of things. But I was telling you earlier, too, you walk through and you see yoga and meditation classes being offered. You can get acupuncture. You can get a massage. You can even sit down in an AA meeting, Don.

LEMON: Yes. Right.

PHILLIPS: So it's not just food and water and clothes. It is unbelievable, the type of resources that are here and how everybody is volunteering and stepping up to the plate.

LEMON: Hey, Kyra, real quick -- and let's talk more about that. Because we've compared that to the response of Hurricane Katrina.

PHILLIPS: Night and day. Night and day.

LEMON: Hurricane Katrina, though, you were -- it was -- you were dealing with people who, economically, may not have been -- may not have been as well off as people in Southern California, who can afford a home of $600,000 on a mountainside. So, the response may be different there.

Talk to us about that a little bit if you can.

PHILLIPS: You know what it is, Don? It's leadership. That's what I've seen here. I've seen an incredible, I guess, organization within the local leadership from the mayor on down...

LEMON: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... and the emergency response teams. That's who you see here. You see all local people running the ship here.

And so, that's the big difference.

LEMON: Right.

PHILLIPS: Versus what we saw in New Orleans. You remember how chaotic it was. There were times where you wondered where the mayor was and what was he doing to help things there in New Orleans, and what was the governor doing? And why did it take so long to see the military come in and help?

You have everything here. And everything was in place, even before it got to this point. So there's your difference.

LEMON: Yes.

PHILLIPS: The difference is leadership.

LEMON: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Because you see all different types of families here. You see low income and you see middle class. And you even see a number of wealthy families here that have already lost everything. And this was the only place they could come to, to get theirselves [sic] together. So you're seeing it all, and you're seeing all types of families, which leads me to another point.

We can't forget about the Hispanic community here in San Diego. It's tremendous. And my father was a teacher at San Jose University in Spanish education for years. He's actually been out here, translating.

And we're going to talk to an Hispanic family, migrant workers. They pick fruit. They are day laborers. And we're going to talk about what the Hispanic community has been going through and how they've gotten information. For the first time, we've seen Spanish reports on English-speaking newscasts. So that's been interesting, as well.

LEMON: Yes. Way to sum it up, Kyra. And it's really been about the leadership, you're absolutely right. And from all accounts, pretty much most accounts now that I've been hearing, and that we've been hearing, it seems that they're doing it right.

We're going to check back in with you. Thank you so much for that. Talk to you soon.

PHILLIPS: All right. See you in a little bit.

LEMON: All right. Let's bring in our meteorologist, Jacqui Jeras. She's in the CNN weather center to talk to us about, you know, those Santa Ana winds, if they're going to get a reprieve, some relief in all of this.

And we certainly hope so, Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And we've been watching some of those signs, seeing those winds calm down, one of which was a picture that we saw earlier, where the plumes were going up vertically, instead of being blown horizontally.

And another sign that things are getting a little bit better, anyway, are that the firefighters are lighting backfires. Now, they've not been able to do this the last couple of days, because the winds would have blown the backfires that they were been burning and created a new one, gotten things out of control. But today the winds are calmer.

Now behind them, they've got the main line of fire way back here. There, you see the firefighters in the foreground right there. You can see that little torch, the flame that he's doing. Now, what they're trying to do is build a perimeter, a new fire around the main one.

The fire that's the main line is coming towards them. The fire that they're trying to light is going to move away from them.

So basically, to keep a fire going, you have to have the fuel. You have to have the chaparral. You've got to have the grasses. You've got to have the trees and the brushes in there for something to burn, right? Well, if they can get the fire line that they're burning now to move towards the main line fire, it's got nothing to burn. There's nothing in between there.

So in essence, this fire will burn its out eventually, if they're able to do what they're trying to do. So they're not trying to create new fires; they're trying to put the big one out. And there's been a lot of progress made today, thankfully, because of some of those winds.

I want to show you an animation behind me, too, because this kind of helps to describe how some of the new fires were burned and started yesterday. There, you can see a fire line moving up a hill. It gets up into the trees. The winds will blow very strongly, and the embers and the branches and things will come out ahead of that main line and start new spot fires. And enough of those get started, you could have a whole new main line fire. We call that spotting or jumping a fire.

And that was very common and a lot of the reasons why on Sunday and Monday some of the isolated home were burned and then the house next to them was just fine. It just depends on which ember gets picked up by that gust of wind, where a new fire may begin.

LEMON: All so random, Jacqui. All so random. OK. Thank you very much for that.

We've been hearing about all the good stories and how the community came together in an organized way. But we're also hearing about price gouging and scams in Southern California. And our Reynolds Wolf is on top of that. He's checking the information on the Web for us.

What are finding, Reynolds?

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Don, unfortunately, you're absolutely right. You know, in so many emergencies, you have stories of people helping people. But we're also learning that there are many people that are just in it for themselves.

You know, just over -- over the last couple of hours, we've been receiving hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. Here's one that we picked, and we're going to show that to you right now. It was sent in by Austin Gilbert.

He says that he has heard from family affected by the fires that some hotels and motels are charging upwards of $2,000 a night to stay because of over demand during the crisis.

Now, "Isn't price gouging illegal," he asks? "Why would people do that as opposed to helping the efforts? Profiting from a natural disaster, especially on Californians, is not something" that he'd like to believe happens. "Is there anything that people can do?"

Well, Austin, there is something that people can do. We've been watching the situation for you. And many California news agencies, including the ABC affiliate -- let's see, this is Channel 7. You'll notice their Web site, they're warning that scam artists are already trying to profit off the Southern California wildfires.

And because of that, what we want to do is we want to steer people who are trying to help these people in Southern California to the right place. Take a look at this Web site. This is CNN.com/ImpactYourWorld. And what it will do is it will steer you in the right direction: the American Red Cross, Save the Children, the San Diego Humane Society and the SPC.

You go to these sites, and your contributions are going to go right where they're supposed to. They're not going to be pushed away to some other place that's a little bit suspicious. It's going to go to the people who desperately need it.

And speaking of people, take a look at this. We've assembled a great team here for no other purpose than to just give you the information you need and to help those Americans in parts of Southern California. We're going to be here as long as it takes, giving you the information that is important to you, and, of course, update you on the fires in Southern California.

That is the latest we've got for you, Don. Let's send it right back to you in the studio.

LEMON: Absolutely, Reynolds. Anyway that we can help. We talk about impacting your world. We're trying to help our viewers out, because we know this is a dire situation for many people, and especially the ones who are concerned, too, as well, about their family members.

WOLF: That's why we're here.

LEMON: Yes. Reynolds, we'll keep checking back. Thank you so much for that.

They rush in to fight the fire. But sometimes the fire fights back. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the story of how burn patients get the best chance at recovery.

Hundreds have lost their homes, but his was spared. Why is that? We'll talk to a homeowner in Poway (ph) about the aftermath in his own neighborhood.

And the ashes aren't close to cool. But California insurance agents, well, they're already in action. We'll tell you what they're doing.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: New video just in to the CNN NEWSROOM. That is the Space Shuttle Discovery above the Southern California coast. And you can see the smoke there off the coast from those fires. Amazing pictures taken from the Space Shuttle Discovery there as it flies or hovers above the earth and right over the Southern California coast. You see that little thing there right in the left-hand of your screen. It says "Planet in Peril" tonight at 9 p.m. Can't think of a better way of summing it all up than these pictures.

We'll continue to follow that and bring you these pictures from space as we get new ones as the Space Shuttle Discovery goes over the California coast.

The California wildfires have injured dozens of people, including 34 firefighters. Some are being treated at the University of California at San Diego's renowned burn center. Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, gives us an inside look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here in a medical triage center at the Qualcomm Stadium. This is a makeshift triage area that was set up as the wildfires started to rage.

They've taken care of about 70 to 100 patients here over the last couple of days. And the numbers have been pretty steady, although the doctors tell me they expect the numbers to start to decline, mainly taking care of problems with his smoke inhalation more than anything else.

If patients have been more severely injured, though, they're going to burn centers around the county. The biggest burn center, the one that most of the patients are being funneled to, is UCSD burn center.

About 1:30 on Sunday is when they saw their first patient. And the numbers of the patients have come in steadily since then. Thirteen patients on that first Sunday.

We get an exclusive chance to take a behind-the-scenes look at the way this burn center operates in a situation like this. It can be difficult for the doctors and the staff. We also got a chance to talk to one particular family.

(voice-over) All that fire and dangerous smoke. We've seen these images over the past few days. But it's not often we get to see the people so directly and so catastrophically affected by it.

(on camera) One thing we really want to do is talk to some of the family members of the patients in here that have been so affected by this. As you might imagine, they haven't been really wanting to talk about this. But one of the families has agreed to speak to us, to tell us what happened to their child in the middle of this entire blaze.

(voice-over) An anguished, worried mother.

LINDA LEWIS, MOTHER OF BURN VICTIM: Her first response to me was "I'm sorry."

GUPTA: Linda Lewis is talking about her daughter, who is also a firefighter.

(on camera) So these are pictures of your daughter?

LEWIS: Yes. This is her, with her daughter and then her with her sister.

GUPTA: So pretty.

(voice-over) And now she's critically injured.

(on camera) Do you know what happened to her? Have they told you what specifically happened to her?

LEWIS: She told me that the -- she was in the truck when the fire overtook them and had to get out of the truck. So, that's how, with all their protective gear, everything was covered, but her face was exposed somewhat. And so, that's why she's burned there.

GUPTA (voice-over): Initial reports were that she was dead. The reality is she's very much alive, thanks in large part to this trauma center.

(on camera) So, what's going on in here? These beds are all full with burn patients?

(voice-over) Dr. Raul Coimbra gave me an exclusive behind-the- scenes look at what has become the home for the sickest of the sick patients.

(on camera) We're not identifying any patients, but can you tell me anything about some of the injuries these patients have here?

DR. RAUL COIMBRA, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO, BURN CENTER: Here is a patient that was one of the last we got early this morning, 40 percent total body surface area burn patient with severe inhalation injury that was promptly intubated in the trauma room, stabilized and brought up here to the burn unit.

GUPTA: So we're giving you a look inside one of these ICU rooms here. We can see all this equipment over here that are used to provide sedation, used to actually paralyze the patient, they use for pain control.

We won't show you the patient's face. It's amazing how much swelling they get, just as a result of all that fluids.

This patient was someone who was actually caught in a fire, who is actually in what's called a chemical coma now, given so much medication to keep her pain under control and so that her lungs can rest, as well, and recover from all of this.

So, you're pretty optimistic about your daughter's recovery?

LEWIS: Very. Very optimistic.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Coimbra is confident that Linda's daughter will survive and even fight fires again. But for now, she still has weeks, if not months, of healing ahead.

(on camera) And Dr. Coimbra is very optimistic about her recovery, as well. She says she does want to continue to be a firefighter, and this is something that Dr. Coimbra thinks she'll be able to do.

There's lots of stories there. Dr. Coimbra himself, for example, his family had to be evacuated, as did many of the doctors and nurses who are caring for patients at the UCSD Medical Center.

It's going to be a long road. They obviously have to have a lot of acute care, get their fluids replaced, on the breathing machines, as you saw, all the bandages.

Taking care of burns requires lots of operations, and many of those have already begun actually taking skin from other parts of the body and starting to replace their native skin.

A long road, but very -- right now, very optimistic at that burn center as far as the recovery of most of those patients.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right, Sanjay.

Live pictures now, Los Alamitos, California, and this is where the governor is getting a briefing there. He's being briefed by the regional support center which coordinates the resources of all the state and federal government agencies, of course with the needs of the local governments affected by the fire.

And then following this briefing, where he is inside there, being briefed now, he's going to hold a press conference to discuss the fires across the state and the emergency relief efforts made throughout Southern California.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will hold a press briefing right after he is briefed. And we will bring that to you, as well.

When we come back, California's crops at risk.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. The fires are burning; the costs are mounting. When NEWSROOM returns, I'll have early damage estimates.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: In California, firefighters starting to get a handle on some of the big blazes, but the damage estimates, well, they just keep rising. And our Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange with a look at just how bad it is.

Susan, I imagine it's pretty bad.

LISOVICZ: It's bad. And, you know, the numbers are going up. Hopefully, that firefighters will continue to make ground against these terrible wildfires.

Nearly 400,000 acres have been scorched. More than 1,000 homes have been damaged or burnt to the ground. So understandably, the estimates are high. They range from $500 million to more than $1 billion, likely to go higher.

At this point, hard to calculate the losses. In many places, still too early for insurance agents to get close enough to assess the damaged areas.

While, some people are suffering incalculable losses, the overall economy in Southern California may bounce back quickly. For one thing, most of the fires seem to have targeted more homeowners than businesses. And typically, natural disasters are followed by months of rebuilding, which pumps money into the local economy and creates lots of jobs.

But that is certainly of little comfort to the people who are suffering so greatly right now -- Don.

LEMON: Yes. You know, down here in Georgia, we've got peaches, and in the Midwest we've got corn. But California has a huge crop, huge crops of fruits and vegetables. Any idea on the damage there yet?

LISOVICZ: Yes. Crop lines specifically around San Diego got hard hit, Don. Big problem, because that county's agriculture industry is valued at nearly $1.5 billion. As of yesterday, 900,000 acres of San Diego-area crop land had been damaged.

Avocados are among the hardest hit, but the fires have also swept across vineyards, citrus groves, as well as cattle and poultry ranches. To make matters worse, the majority of San Diego's farms are small, family-owned places. So not only are farmers' livelihoods affected, but some have lost their homes, as well.

(STOCK REPORT)

LISOVICZ: Coming up next hour, mortgage lender Countrywide Financial teaming up with one of its harshest critics in an effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. That is a story that actually is good news.

LEMON: That is good news.

LISOVICZ: Countrywide stepping up, Don.

LEMON: Boy, oh, boy; what a mess that's been. It would be great for someone to step up and help out.

LISOVICZ: I'll see you in the next hour. We'll talk about that.

LEMON: Yes. Can't wait for that. Thank you very much, Susan.

LISOVICZ: You're welcome.

LEMON: A national disaster, evacuation, a sports stadium, FEMA, sound familiar? The comparisons with Katrina are starting already. We'll have details on that coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And as some tend to the physical needs of a community in shock; others reach out to offer emotional and spiritual support. My colleague, Kyra Phillips, will talk about ministering in San Diego's time of need. That's just ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: CNN working its worldwide resources on this story. This is our affiliate KUSI. They're reporting. They've been having 24- hour coverage of these fires. This is their live coverage now. Let's take a quick listen in.

LT. PHIL BRUST, SAN DIEGO SHERIFF'S OFFICE: All the way from Rainbow Glen down through old 395 and then cuts a little bit west toward Gerd Road and finally ends on the south side at Fallbrook Country Club. That may not mean anything other than the Fallbrook people. The fire on the south side is -- I won't say contained. They're watching it. The winds are very favorable there.

LEMON: That's good news.

BRUST: Western boundary of the old fire, the western boundary is approximately Gerd Road at Fallbrook Country Club and has not gone further south as of right now. The reason they evacuated Bonsall was because of the fear that the winds would pick up last night and push the fire into the river bed and take off and burn west. That's why they've evacuated.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Is that continuing? That's still mandatory evacuation?

BRUST: For portions of it. That is still continuing. The north side is still a big concern. They're making a stand so that the fire doesn't get into the San Luis Rey River bed or San Luis Rey drainage in which case it will you know burn the back side of the Luis Canyon up into Riverside and back into Camp Pendleton. They're making a stand there.

The good news is that there is air support there now. There's bulldozers there now. Lots of resources are being committed. And that's where they're making their stand and, hopefully, they'll be successful.

And again, the winds are favorable up there right now. So, so far, so good. The fire hasn't really done anything dramatic that we're not already aware of.

PHILLIPS: You know we have video from Hamul. We're seeing some of the helicopters go in. It looks like we're seeing military helicopters go in. Do you know how they're attacking this fire up in Fallbrook? I know you're not fire. You're sheriff. But what have you heard?

BRUST: Well, I've heard that there is air support up there. I'm not sure exactly what resources have been allocated to Fallbrook right now. Just hearing that there's air up there, whether it's helicopters with buckets or they've got some tankers up there, we don't care. We just want them to put something on the fire and get the flames out. I'm not sure exactly what equipment there is.

We also have the concern in Fallbrook because of the Camp Pendleton fire. And if that fire continues to burn, that could burn on to the west side of Fallbrook and burn down into town. That's again another concern. That's why we reissued that mandatory evacuation order again last night.

LEMON: All right. That's our affiliate coverage KUSI talking to Lieutenant Phil Brust. He's with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department talking about the Fallbrook, a fire there. Also talking about Camp Pendleton that caused I-5 to be shut down.

But the good news in all of this, you heard him say that they had some of the fires contained there. They're pouring water on the fire and that it was good because it wasn't going to go back down into the town and that the winds were cooperating.

So, it appears, it appears that the end of the tunnel is near. There is some light at the end of the tunnel. It will take a while to get these fires out, but weather conditions are cooperating now.

We'll check in with Jacqui Jeras in just a bit and she can confirm that for tonight for us but I think that those winds are calming down, Santa Ana winds becoming much calmer now.

An army of firefighters at war against a very powerful enemy but north of Los Angeles, unlike areas farther south, victory may be at hand. Major fires are substantially contained.

CNN's John Zarrella is in Santa Clarita.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the command center at Santa Clarita. All around here in the last few days, there have been several fires burning the past few days and of course up until today you could see a tremendous amount of smoke in the sky. Look back here now, it's almost clear. Very little smoke in the sky now. That's really good news.

You're finally getting a sense. You can see the smiles on the faces of firefighters here. Because for the most part, what they're dealing with now is mop-up duty. The big fires we heard about, the Buckwheat fire nearly contained, about 94 percent contained. The Ranch fire is 45 percent contained, but they're building the fire lines around that, finishing that up. And they expect that they'll be able to get into mop-up duty on that one very shortly. They also have a couple of other fires they're working. But those also now are in the waning stages. Here, at least in Los Angeles County, there's a chance now to start to wine down, to get some of these firefighters off of this fire, get them back into the system so they'll be able to move them to other places where they're needed.

Now yesterday, we had an opportunity to take a helicopter tour over those fires, and you could see some of the huge smoke and the flames from flying at about 6,500 feet. Everywhere you look, the pocket of flames here, another pocket of fire over there. And in all directions, you saw that, on the hillsides and down into the valleys. So there's still fires burning out there. They still have to keep firefighters here, in place, in order to get a handle on those and to make sure there are no flare ups and to finally beat back those last flames. At least here in Los Angeles County, winds have died down, the weather, mother nature finally on the firefighters' side.

John Zarrella, CNN, Santa Clarita, California.

LEMON: All right, John. Live pictures now from Santiago Canyon in California. These are courtesy of our affiliate KTLA. Fires still going down it looks like down in the valley here. Not sure if it's one the back fires set by firefighters or if it's just part of all of these brush fires that are just really raging across southern California.

Jacqui Jeras, our meteorologist, joins us now to talk just about the wind conditions there. And Jacqui maybe you can add some perspective on this fire here in Santiago Canyon and the wind conditions.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Look at those pictures. It's really telling by looking at the video and the direction that the smoke is moving. Notice how it's kind of lifting up. It looks like it's just kind of billowing very lightly, moving overtly rather than horizontally. You can see a little bit of motion there, but overall a lot of haze and a lot of smoke. So, it's not moving very fast and in a uniform direction. That's a very good indicator that the winds are lighter in this area.

I've got a Google Earth animation to show you where this area is. The satellite imagery is on top of it. This is from yesterday. Look at how that smoke from that fire blows right out over the ocean. In fact, the smoke went out more than 500 miles. It was just incredible. There, you can see this area. There's so much terrain here. It's hilly, down into the canyon areas and the winds have become much calmer. That is certainly some good news and that's going to help things improve over the next couple of days as well.

I want to talk a little bit about how much area has burned here. If I could take one quick second and show you that. 645 square miles is what we've been talking about. It's hard to put that into perspective. We put a polygon over New York City and its five boroughs. It's twice as large as that. So imagine all of New York City and all the boroughs twofold completely burned down which is incredible. Don, those winds are lightening up and we're expecting a change by tomorrow. Big improvements. LEMON: Isn't that a sigh of relief?

JERAS: It is.

LEMON: That's great. All right, Jacqui. Thank you so much for that.

It is 1:41 in the east. Here are three of the stories we're working on for you in NEWSROOM beside those fires.

One of two students wounded at Delaware State University last month has died. She was a 17-year-old cheerleader who had been in the hospital since the attack has died. No immediate word on whether the alleged gunman, also a student, will now face murder charges.

Three new charges against O.J. Simpson and his co-defendants, prosecutors added felony coercion to the already lengthy list. Simpson and the others are accused of threatening a sports memorabilia dealer at a Las Vegas hotel.

And China has launched its first moon probe. If all goes as planned, it will enter the moon's orbit by November 5th. Beautiful pictures there.

A natural disaster. Evacuations. A sports stadium. FEMA. Does all of that sound familiar? The comparisons with hurricane Katrina are already starting. Details on that straight ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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LEMON: All right. This is new video in to the NEWSROOM. Here is the concern. Military personnel evacuated from Camp Pendleton during those fires, those fires right there that you see raging. You might remember earlier, same fire, the same brush fire, a wildfire caused I-5 to be closed. We were told I-5 was not threatened. It was just that the smoke from a controlled back burn set to contain the fire there was part of the problem.

But again, this is new video from the U.S. defense department of that fire at Camp Pendleton that caused 4,000 military personnel to have to evacuate from several bases in that area, including, I'm told, Camp Pendleton. Again, I-5 was closed.

What you're looking at right there is in Los Alamitos, California, Governor Schwarzenegger inside, being briefed by a number of directors in there. And then he is then going to come out and hold a press conference and update the media on the fires and all the emergency relief efforts made throughout southern California.

We've been talking about those relief efforts, those coordinated responses and just how folks have been coming together with all this. On that side of the story, from Qualcomm Stadium, my colleague, Kyra Phillips.

Hi Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Hi Don. You know I started making those calls immediately since this is my hometown, called my mom and dad first, of course, to make sure everything was OK. Then started calling my friends. But my parents are very involved with my church here in San Diego. It's the church I grew up in, First United Methodist. It's actually just five minutes -- well, about five to seven minutes from the stadium here. It's just across the other side of the highway. And I checked in to see what they were doing.

Of course, they were highly involved in the volunteer effort, offering up men and women to come over here, and to help serve food. The volunteer effort has been incredibly coordinated. About every 20 minutes or so, someone steps up to the microphone and calls a number and calls a group. And you've got hundreds of people that come over. Then they're assigned to certain areas. I mean it's like a well-oiled machine.

So, bottom line, I reached out to my pastors. They are here today. They were here yesterday. Actually, you guys have been here since Monday. This is Molly Vetter and Jim Standiford. I want to thank you for coming over here and being so patient.

Jim, I want to start with you. Our church has always been so fantastic to volunteer work. You're right across the highway from the stadium here. Have you seen a difference from previous volunteer work to now when it comes to a disaster like wildfires here in San Diego?

REV. JIM STANDIFORD, FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: By all means. Four years ago, we had the cedar fire. It came through San Diego, over 2,000 houses taken by that. And, really, the response across the community was not well organized. It is such a vast improvement now.

As Molly said a little while ago, the city is acting like a church. Everybody is pitching in. And so what we have done through the direction of our district superintendent is all United Methodist churches in this area coordinate together and offer ourselves through the Red Cross and through the city for our facilities to be used. We haven't been called yet. What we're doing is funneling all of our people here to Qualcomm Stadium. And they're part of the volunteer team doing everything you can imagine here.

PHILLIPS: I witnessed that. Molly, this is something you're so wonderful with. And that's counseling and dealing with people that are going through a hard time, whether it's serving over in Iraq. Your husband served in Iraq. To even right here at home. How have you been able to touch people and reach out and just be here with regard to crisis counseling?

REV. MOLLY VETTER, FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: At this point in the disaster, it feels to me like what people most need is someone to be present with them. There's so much uncertainty, people wondering what's going on with their homes, what their future will be, people beginning to deal with real losses. It's overwhelming to me the way the whole community seems to be pitching inform because the relief effort seems so coordinated, the anxiety level seems low.

I was talking with a woman who was evacuated and has been here at Qualcomm since Monday. She was talking about how she's encountered people who were distressed and just sometimes she was able to spend with them, hearing their story, was able to move them from tears to laughter. So, the community is doing such a good job of just being present for each other, which is beautiful. It's what I would call the kingdom of God, people caring for each and people being provided for. It's beautiful to watch.

PHILLIPS: Something that you guys do every Sunday, something that I miss. I get to take part now that I'm home for this situation. And Jim, what is the message and the people that have touched you? What's moved you, I guess, as a pastor since you've been here?

STANDIFORD: Well, first of all, we've seen some of our people here as evacuees, come in, put their stuff down and go immediately to the volunteer tent and offer themselves. I think that's what molly is talking about. It's just happening over and over again. It's such a heart warming experience. It's what you want a community to do, be a community, people caring about each other.

VETTER: And I think there's a lot of that happening that's invisible. People that have not been evacuated here, but to friend's homes, people opening up their homes to folks they know or folks of folks they know and welcoming them in. People are distant from this place. But if you think about half a million people evacuated that have been absorbed by people they know, church members, all of that is happening all around us. It's really incredible to see.

PHILLIPS: Molly and Jim, my pastors at First United Methodist, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you sharing your message. It means a lot to me.

Don, you met my pastors. My dad also has been highly involved, volunteering. He has been translating, actually, for the Hispanic families that have been trying to get information about their homes. A lot of the Hispanic families that live out in the Ramona area had to be evacuated and they haven't been able to get word because a lot of them are not completely bilingual. We're seeing not only the churches get involved in the serving of food and providing counseling, but also in translation for the Hispanic community. The English-speaking newscast, for the first time on one of the local stations at KNSD actually has an anchor giving these news reports in Spanish. That's how we came across the families here. My father has been able to translate.

We're going to meet one of those families and talk about those efforts going on to also reach that part of this community. As you know, the Hispanic community is large, being so close to the Tijuana border and so many of them work in this community and are really a part of the families here in San Diego. So, we'll talk about that coming up at the top of the hour.

LEMON: Yes, I want to talk more. We need to turn it over to our local stations. We've got to go. You know what that means, right? Thank you. Talk to you in a bit.

No home, no insurance. A double tragic reality for Californians. We'll tell you what you need to know to make sure your losses are covered straight ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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LEMON: Imagine this. Your home goes up in flames and you can't cover the loss. A heartbreaking reality for some Californians as CNN's Kiran Chetry found out earlier.

BILLIE SCHLOTTE, LOST HOME: We didn't have any insurance on our home. So, we don't know where we're going to be living or staying from moment to moment.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you have family in the area?

BEN SCHLOTTE, LOST HOME: I have no family left in this state. My only family is my wife and her family.

SCHLOTTE: My parents also live in Ramona. We're praying that their house makes it through this fire. They lost their home in the Cedar fires. We can temporarily stay with them.

LEMON: How can you make sure you're fully covered for a disaster like this one?

CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis is in Spring Valley, California. You can really help some people out.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: I'm telling you, a lot of frustration here, where Steel Canyon High School, 150 people have been evacuated. They're getting food here, water here, and overnighting here and even getting information on insurance. State Farm is here with experts, offering advice about how to file a claim to anybody who wants it.

The big question that people need to be asking themselves right now, how much coverage do I really have? You need to consult your insurance policy, look at the declarations page. That first line will tell you how much coverage you have. But, Don, most people are under insured. You have to hope that you have the right kind of policy that's going to see you through, not a cash value policy. That's not going to be enough. You have to have enough to rebuild, fix up your home and your life really.

Next thing you need to do, once you know how much you're covered for is to understand how much it's going to cost, written estimates from contractors you actually used to fix up your house, rebuild your house. Keep details, all kinds of detail, even about the contents of your house. This information you're going to have to give your insurance agent, everything from, you know, do you have fans in the house, air conditioners, all the things you own in the house. Laundry list them. Fortunately, the California insurance department has a cheat sheet on its website that helps people remember, even when you're not at home what kind of things you have at your house, like the silver that you're going to want to get reimbursement for. Of course, for people like this, who are out there, they're buying food on the road, maybe even overnighting in hotels, you need to keep track of those receipts as well.

Don.

LEMON: Personal finance editor Gerri Willis, thank you very much. Very practical advice on that one.

We're standing by for a news conference at Qualcomm Stadium. We're being told it will be with California Senator Barbara Boxer, the mayor of San Diego and some other representatives and congresspeople there as well.

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