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More on the California Fires; Genarlow Wilson is Released; Private Firefighters; NFL Goes Global
Aired October 27, 2007 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Right now in the NEWSROOM: California's not out of the woods yet. We'll hear from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger later in the hour and we'll bring that to you live.
Over 27,000 acres and still growing while firefighters are making some progress in many parts of Southern California. The Santiago wildfire in Orange County is still only 35 percent contained. The cause has been confirmed as arson and investigators are looking for a white Ford pickup truck just like it one you see right here.
Let's get right to CNN's John Zarrella in Orange, California. And so, John, what is it that led investigators to believe that this white Ford pickup truck had something to do, possibly with this fire?
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Fredricka, they have been getting hundreds and hundreds of tips coming into the call center that was established here in Orange County. Over 700 as of yesterday and one of those tips, obviously, a very valid tip led them to believe that a white 150, Ford 150 between the years of 1998 and 2004 was up around the canyon on Sunday at about the time that the fires began between 5:45 and 6:00 p.m. It was on the road there at the Santiago canyon road.
Now, it's not the actual one that we've been showing you. That's one the Fire Department held up saying, there's one out there like this that was on Santiago canyon road on Sunday afternoon, if you saw it there, we'd like to talk to the people who're in it. Please let us know and they are saying that these individuals are not suspects, but they're persons of interest and it was up there on the road, very near, apparently, to where the fires were set, which is right between the Santiago and Silverado canyons, so, that's why they're interested in talking to whoever owned that vehicle, whoever was up there in that vehicle or anyone who might have seen that vehicle. They don't want people calling in who see Silverado's in shopping malls and all over Orange County. Just if you saw it up there.
Now, at the same time, of course, the investigators are continuing to fan out all over that area, expanding the grid search looking for clues, hoping that they can find some clues as to who started the fire, what the ignition sources were for the fire -- that's alcohol, tobacco and firearms agents. And the fire still, as you mentioned, Fredricka, only 35 percent contained. Late yesterday afternoon it was threatening some homes at the bottom of the canyon floor. We understand they have not lost any more homes there, but it is dangerously close. And you can certainly see the billowing plumes of smoke, again, today. And we've seen helicopters flying over with buckets of water. They're trying intense fire suppression up there. They have about 2,000 firefighters on the ground in there trying to keep that fire at bay and to try to get even a better handle on it than they have. And you know what? There actually have been a few little sprinkles of rain, no more than a tease, but a little bit of rain, humidity is up, the wind is down, which is certainly good news.
And also as you mentioned, we're expecting the governor here within the hour, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger going to get briefed here. He's also going to be accompanied by the district attorneys of Orange County, San Diego County. They're going to be talking about investigative efforts, as well as the situation with the fire -- Fredricka?
WHITFIELD: Alright, John, thanks so much. Of course, we'll cover that live when the governor is ready to speak. Thanks so much.
Meantime, this -- also a sparked new controversy, this is higher fire matter in Southern California. It is now highlighting a huge disparity between the rich and the poor when it comes to fire protection, that is.
CNN's Brian Todd investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Virtually burned to the ground.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Fred and Janet Judge have an idyllic view -- their backyard sweeps out to a canyon in Rancho Santa Fe. The canyon is now charred. The witch fire burned right up to their property.
FRED JUDGE, RANCHO SANTA FE RESIDENT: You can see that the fire burned right up to this point and it stopped, right here.
TODD: It's no twist of fate that the Judge's yard and house were spared.
JUDGE: There's no question in my mind that the foam was the difference between us being able to come back to a home that's intact, compared to have it burned to the ground.
TODD: The foam he's talking about is a chemical retardant sprayed by private firefighters. The Judges arranged it through their insurance company. Fred Judge says his firemen for hire got to his house just in time before the Fire Department. Many of these contractors are trained firefighters, like Bryce Carrier, but he says they try to be more of a compliment than competition.
BRYCE CARRIER, AIG FIREFIGHTING CONTRACTOR: The best scenario is that we can get here before the Fire Department actually is here. We don't want to step on any toes or you know, get in any issues where we're, you know, kind of like a cluster. TODD (on camera): These private contractors were very effective during the Southern California wildfires but critics say this kind of service is really too exclusive, only available in wealthy neighborhoods like this one.
(voice over): They have a point. Those who get the service pay premiums of at least $10,000 a year, most owned homes worth at least $1 million in places like Malibu and Aspen, Colorado. Fred Judge believes that equation will change.
JUDGE: I sensed -- is the competition will drive the price of this stuff to be affordable by everybody. I think we're going to see a revolution now.
TODD: Fred's insurance company says it wants to help spur that revolution. An official with American International Group told us they want to work with public Fire Departments to help them offer this kind of service to those who aren't in the most affluent zip codes.
Brian Todd, CNN, Rancho Santa Fe, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Let's hope for everybody -- cooler temperatures and, I guess, fewer winds or at least low wind gusts -- or making it easier for everybody there in Southern California, particularly the firefighters. Karen McGinnis is in the weather center. I don't know the right way to put that. How would that be?
KAREN MCGINNIS, METEOROLOGIST: During the evening we typically start to see the wind start to ...
WHITFIELD: Lighter wind, there you go, that's what I'm looking for.
MCGINNIS: Exactly. But we actually have and the winds have shifted around just a little bit. What we can anticipate is during the evening hours we'll see a little bit of a wind shift take place as winds will come off the mountains out of the east, but that's fairly typical. Here are the fires we're seeing across Southern California -- 12 major fires already, more than 628,000 acres burned. The worth being more than 200,000 acres, that being the witch fire.
And now, this goes back a few days from Wednesday. This coming from Weather Bonk and believe it or not, there is a actually a Web site called Weather Bonk. Well, these are images of the fire raced over the hills and the camera managed to survive this, but, as you can see, the visibility is very, very poor from this observation tower. Just let you know just how bad the air can be. Even if it doesn't appear to be bad in your area, those particulates are very small and they may lingering in the atmosphere for quite some time.
How about those wind? Well, they're variable but an area of low pressure just off the Southern California coast and little bit further out into the ocean, another area of low pressure. We could see a few sprinkles along the coastal sections here, but you could see, generally speaking, those winds are light and variable, maybe a stray shower but only about a 20 percent likelihood that that's going to happen. If you did see some rainfall, that would be good, for a number of reasons.
But the humidity has gone up, the wind is coming from the south, the southwest as I mentioned, it's little variable, but on those mountain ridges from the Santa Rosa mountains all the way to the Southern (INAUDIBLE), we could see those wind start to pick up during the evening hours. So, Fredricka, it's not completely a foregone conclusion that the Santa Ana's are over with because it is going to be isolated, but we think towards next weekend, we'll start to see a greater chance for the Santa Ana's to return again.
WHITFIELD: Wow! Folks have to get through a whole nuttier (ph) week.
MCGINNIS: Yes, exactly.
WHITFIELD: All right, our fingers are crossed, thanks so much, Karen.
We'll still on the topic of Southern California -- in Rancho Bernardo, California, where people are returning to their homes and they're finding rubble, there is an effort under way to actually help them. Donations are being collected, but there's a problem.
Reggie Aqui has that part of the story. What could be the problem with that?
REGGIE AQUI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, to be honest with you, we're going to talk about that later. I want to get to something maybe even more pressing right now when it comes to insurance and when it comes to people who are trying to clean up their homes. I want to pan of here and show you what's going on back here.
This family right here, I just meet them a few minutes ago, all of the employees that work with them, they're out here going through what is left of their home, trying to find anything and it is important for me to point out, everybody here has a terrible story of loss when you've got a house that's completely destroyed.
This family has experienced that loss twice in a year and a half. A year and a half ago, they lost a mother to breast cancer and just a few minutes ago they're able to find a piece of her jewelry in that rubble, as you might imagine that is extremely important to them. Anything that they can find that is a part of their former life that they lived here for so many years and there are stories at every turn around every block.
Janice has been kind enough to meet us here right now. She lives down the street. Her home looks much like the one that we see behind you. Janice, how are you and your family doing right now?
JANICE BAKER, RANCHO BERNARDO RESIDENT: Well, we're adjusting to the situation and the best way I think we possibly could. We have some very considerate and generous friends who've been putting at myself, my husband and my three children up. And I think we're fortunate that we did get a place to live because the schools are open Monday, from what we're told and we'll be able to get the kids to school on time when they're supposed to be, yes.
AQUI: Right now you're securing an apartment so you can stay there for a little while and a place that's close to where the kids go to school.
BAKER: It's close and fortunately, it's furnished, too, because we left with nothing or next to nothing actually. Except our pets and the few things we could grab because we just had minutes to get out and get in the car. So, we'll be in a place, fortunately, that's close by to a lot of stores where we normally shop at.
So, at least we have some familiarity with things and, again, the schools are being very, very nice to the kids with supplying them lunches and new P.E. clothes and a lot of the things that have been destroyed, you know, gone by the wayside -- yes.
AQUI: Let me ask you about insurance. I've been talking to some families this morning about getting those checks cut. This is probably the most important thing right now to get that money in, at least peace of mind to know that you can rebuild. What's your situation?
BAKER: Well, we're pretty good. I think we're going to be just fine. The insurance company that we have has so far been wonderful. This is, again, something I've never ever been through and fortunately we have some friend who are in the insurance business, we have, you know, we're, again, trying to educate ourselves very quickly on the questions to ask and things that you just have to make sure you do like list everything and we have to crosscheck it amongst ourselves and our children's health and just to make sure that we are getting what we need to get back to our life and it's going to take quite a long time.
But, fortunately, my husband is an architect so, you know, we have a lot of good connections that way and we, fortunately, have him to know what it takes to build a house from the ground up.
AQUI: I really appreciate you coming out and talking to us. I wish you guys all the best. The school starts for you next week so, maybe that will get your mind off a little bit of what's going on out here and, again, we're all thinking about you guys and good luck to you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
AQUI: And Fred, I didn't mean to ignore the question that you asked me before and we'll talk about that later. But since we had these people here, I wanted to get their story out. It is so important to hear from them.
WHITFIELD: No, it is great. It is very important and pressing -- their story is being repeated how many times over, there's so many other folks who are in the same boat as they are. We wish them the best, of course and glad they were able to take the time out because in the end people might be able to learn something from hearing one another's stories. All right, Reggie, we'll check back with you. Thanks so much.
Meantime, we'll check in again with some other fire evacuees. FEMA officials today are touring an assistant center that's in Rancho Bernardo, that same area, talking to a lot of other folks who are in the same boat as that family. And this is the hardest hit area of the San Diego County. FEMA's regional administrator is assessing the magnitude of the work ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY WARD, FEMA REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR: Recovery is a long process for people to rebuild their lives and to get back to a sense of normalcy. Children back in schools, people back to work, homes in a stable environment for them to live in. And that's our focus here right now. We also have debris to clean up and we have restoration of burn areas that we need to move on quickly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Ward praised coordination efforts between local, state and federal agencies calling it "incredible."
California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to hold a news conference in less than an hour from now to update us on the wildfires, as well as an update on the arson investigations. We'll bring that to you live as it happens.
And as the wildfires burn, the politicians point fingers and blame one another. Could these fires have been prevented? We're keeping them on us.
And a young Georgia man sent to prison for a consensual sexual encounter. That young man has now been released. We'll go in depth to explore the role race may have played in keeping him locked up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Well, let's get back to other news involving Southern California in a moment. But first, the U.S. government is outraged today after one of the leaders of the bombing of the USS COLE in Yemen was released. Seventeen soldiers were killed when the ship was bombed seven years ago. Jamal Al-Badawi was serving time for the attack as he escaped from the prison and then actually turned himself in, well, now, Yemen has released him on the condition that he renounced terrorism.
Here in this country, Gernarlow Wilson, free at last. His sex case and prison sentence sent shock waves across the country and cries from supporters that prosecutors had been racially motivated.
CNN's Rusty Dornin reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Twenty-one-year- old Genarlow Wilson walked out of prison into the arms of his mother and nine-year-old sister. He was almost three years into a 10-year prison sentence that the Georgia Supreme Court decided was cruel and unusual punishment for his crime. That crime was having oral sex with a 15-year-old when he was 17. The ruling came on a four to three vote. Wilson's case made headlines around the world and after his a short reunion he walked straight to the microphones.
GENARLOW WILSON, FREED PRISONER: I want to say thank you very much. You know, it means a lot to me and my family that so many people came to our defense and, you know, stood up and fought for us.
DORNIN: A year after Wilson was convicted, his case spurred Georgia legislatures to change the law, make consensual sex between minors a misdemeanor. State officials have opposed releasing Wilson, fearing would trigger other appeals from other sex offenders in prison. Dave McDade, the district attorney said in a statement that he is disappointed -- "While I respectfully may disagree with the court's decision, I also must respect their authority as the final arbiter in this case."
Wilson says he's been studying for college exams and hopes to study sociology. He also hopes people will learn from his experience.
WILSON: I don't want anybody to go through himself to the pain I suffered and, you know et cetera. But, yeah, you should be little more cautious about what you do because a few minutes of fun can be a lifetime, you know, and a very hard time getting out of.
DORNIN: His mother says she always believed that justice would be done.
JUANESSA BENNETT, GENARLOW WILSON'S MOTHER: I never gave up hope, you know, in the judicial system and I never gave up hope and all the prayers that went out for us.
WILSON: Not bitter, Wilson says he's matured since he walked through the prison gates here two and a half years ago. A young man who says he's ready for a whole new life.
Rusty Dornin, CNN, Forsyth, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And we're not done with this story. This case in the moment, we'll talk to our legal experts. Here they are Avery Friedman and Richard Herman. Good to see you guys. I'll ask them -- what is at the root of this case, really? What are their thoughts? Does this exemplify a judicial system stacked against blacks? The role that race may have played in this high profile cases. Next in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right. Back now to the Genarlow Wilson case. His quarter say he was a victim of gross injustice. And Georgia Supreme Court seems to agree it says that Wilson's 10-year sentence for consensual sexual encounter was cruel and unusual punishment. Yesterday it ordered the 21-year-old released from prison. He was 17 at the time of the offense, the girl was 15.
Our legal experts have been following this case very closely. Avery Friedman is a civil rights attorney and law attorney professor, good to see you Avery.
AVERY FRIEDMAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Hi, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: And Richard Herman is a New York criminal and defense attorney and law professor, good to see you, as well.]
RICHARD HERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Hi, Fred.
WHITFIELD: I know it was killing you guys not to say anything prematurely.
FRIEDMAN: It's our nature.
WHITFIELD: Alright, well, here it goes. So, why did this, I guess, reversal take so long, Avery?
FRIEDMAN: Well, actually, it didn't take long, Fredricka. What have happen is ...
WHITFIELD: Two years?
FRIEDMAN: No, less than a year ago this same Supreme Court, four to three, four whites, three blacks saying we're not going to do anything about it. It comes back to the Supreme Court on a habeas corpus and one of the whites shifted over and it went four to three, releasing Mr. Wilson's. So, this happened fairly quickly.
WHITFIELD: All right. Richard, why did this happen in the first place? Is it an outrage or was it just to be sentenced 10 years for consensual teen sex, oral sex.
HERMAN: Fred, the Georgia legislature had a Statute on the books and requiring it to be a felony with a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years and sex offender registry. That took the sentencing discretion away from the judge. The judge had a sentence in the 10 years upon his conviction. A year later the Georgia legislature changed the law and reversed it down to a misdemeanor requiring a lesser prison sentence.
Under those circumstances now, Genarlow Wilson takes his appeal back to the Georgia Supreme Court and they say based on the fact that the Georgia legislature reduced that crime to a misdemeanor and based on the fact that he was a young man with a 10-year prison sentence which they deem cruel and unusual, they then decided he should be released from prison.
FRIEDMAN: And they compared other states, Fredricka. What they did is they look at what Alaska does, what Kentucky does and they basically said, look, you know what? We're the only state in the union that has this mandatory minimum.
WHITFIELD: Yes, and so, there is this disparity. So, what is the root of this disparity? Why would this state be a stand-alone state or part of a minority that would have this kind of punishment imposed on this kind of crime, whether it's you know, considered a felony or misdemeanor?
FRIEDMAN: A lousy job by the state legislature. The fact is that this is legislation that is very, very important and they finally, it finally dawned on them, 11 years after they wrote the law that they should screwed it up and the fact is, the fact is that this was the case that forced them to do it.
HERMAN: (INAUDIBLE)
WHITFIELD: OK, Richard, go ahead.
HERMAN: New York has the Rockefeller Law, the drug laws -- the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York which are outrageous and are very similar to this with mandatory minimums. But you know, the legislature, they spoke and the Supreme Court, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed, you know, kudos go out to B.J. Bernstein, his attorney, for her relentless pursuit, she's been on CNN many times. Her relentless -- he's a very lucky man, this Genarlow Wilson. He should know how lucky he is.
WHITFIELD: So, I got to ask you guys about race and how much if at all it played a role in this case because all kind of comparisons being made whether it's this case, this case exemplifying a number of cases where it seems the black man is a defendant, the crime, if you want to call it that, seems to be certainly not on the same level as the punishment imposed.
So, is race, in any way, the root of all this, even though we're saying Georgia is an anomaly when you talk about, Avery, the other states and how it would compare this kind of offense? I don't want to, it's hard to call it an offense because some places it is an offense and other places it's not.
FRIEDMAN: It isn't. Right, well, let me answer the question. This case is drips in race, it is soaked with race and the best example of that is what the Georgia Supreme Court did less than a year ago. You had three justices who were black who were outraged in their descent that this application of the law applied in the Genarlow Wilson case. And then of course, the white majority said, well, we don't think there is anything wrong, essentially.
We have to follow the mandate of the legislature. Fortunately, with the change in the law, it offered the lawyers a brand-new legal theory of coming back under cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment under a Bill of Rights under the U.S. Constitution and, you know what, it worked by a hair, but it worked.
WHITFIELD: So, Richard, if you agree that it -- you know, race is at the base here and the Georgia Supreme Court is saying cruel and unusual punishment, this young man now has a nice little lawsuit against the State? Can he even go there to say I want some of my two years back?
HERMAN: Fred, he has absolutely no lawsuit against the State and I respectfully disagree with Avery. I do not think this is dripping of race. This law applied to white people, black people, any color people. This was straight across the board. It is to protect under age sex and the Georgia Supreme Court did not say they condoned the behavior of Genarlow Wilson.
That's not the issue here, the issue is the sentence -- the mandatory minimum of 10 years. That's the only issue. And you know, I do not see it as being, the foundation being any kind of race and he has no case.
FRIEDMAN: Wait, in all fairness, take a look at the Supreme Court. The whites affirm the effort to keep him in jail for 10 years. The black justices said, no, this is way out of line.
WHITFIELD: Because they saw it differently, that makes a statement.
FRIEDMAN: It sure does. It's inescapable. And the bottom line in this, is at least the one white justice, Justice Heinstein (ph) realized, wait a minute, this is grossly disproportionate. That's the language of the Supreme Court, Fredricka, in reversing this.
WHITFIELD: All right.
HERMAN: And the minority says you know, now there's going to be a flood gate of cases coming in. Everybody who got sentenced under the old laws to release everybody from prison based on the new rule.
WHITFIELD: Yes, all right. You get the last word, Richard, because now we're out of time. Avery, Richard, thank you so much, we'll see you next weekend. Always a pleasure to see you and hear you.
We'll we're going to talk again later on about Southern California wildfires. Could these fires actually have been prevented? And there's politics involved in all this, too. Democrats and Republicans say, yes, but they're blaming each other for not doing enough. So, who is to blame?
And thick smoke hangs over parts of Southern California, you know that. See who else is monitoring the air from thousands of miles away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Happening right now, authorities in California are searching for a white Ford F-150 pickup truck, similar to the one right here. Officials say the driver of the pickup is wanted for questioning in the Santiago fire in Orange County. They say the fire was deliberately set. The Ford pickup model is between 1998 and 2004.
And California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to hold a news conference during the next hour. We'll monitor it rather, and let you know what he says.
Meantime, those fires in Southern California apparently have stoked the fires in Washington now. People are talking politics playing a role in all this. How could that be?
Josh Levs is here to keep them all honest. Politics is part of everything, isn't it?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, but no matter what's going on, politicians are going to jump on it.
WHITFIELD: I thought this was a force of nature and maybe even, of course, at the hand of some arsonist or two, too, but now, politics?
LEVS: Well, you know how the Washington game works. They'll all acknowledge that it's nature and they care equally, but then they'll say, by the way, here's the political issue about wildfires.
WHITFIELD: And maybe in response time, is that what we're talking about?
LEVS: (INAUDIBLE). Here's more about did they do enough in advance to prevent this kind of thing from happening nationally in general.
WHITFIELD: OK.
LEVS: So, the big players here in this one, you've got Harry Reid, the top Democrat in all of Congress and then, you've got the White House. They ended up going at each other and we wanted to look today at whether they actually have a point or if what they're saying is just a whole lot of hot air.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEVS (voice-over): The fires were raging, the fears flying. People were looking for answers, all the combustible ingredients for a fresh political battle.
SEN. HARRY REID, (D) MAJORITY LEADER: We shouldn't have to fight with the president every time we have an appropriation bill to get money we know we're going to need. We've had these wildfires in the west now for a number of years and we need more money.
LEVS: Senator Harry Reid said Democrats had to fight to put hundreds of millions of dollars into wildfire suppression, which includes efforts to clear out brush that fuels fires.
The White House shot back. Spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on Air Force one that, "efforts have been well funded." She cited the Healthy Forest Initiative that passed in 2003 after what she called "years of Democratic opposition."
That initiative was designed to help increase logging, which the White House said could clear out fuel for fires. The main opposition was from environmental groups that wanted controlled burning, instead. The Sierra Club says the "initiative is based on the false assumption that landscape-wide logging will decrease forest fires."
While that battle rages on, the White House says hundreds of millions of dollars are available for fire prevention and that it takes time to carry out prevention work. Those overseeing efforts to combat the California fires are not pointing fingers at Democrats or the federal government, quite the opposite.
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, (R) CALIFORNIA: And the president jump into action right away, so we want to say thank you to the president for everything that he has done.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEVS: So, unlike with Hurricane Katrina, what you're not seeing here is government agencies in general blamed for being unprepared. You're hearing a lot more about the forces of nature, like the weather, and the fact that people are moving in to these fire-prone areas.
And it's well and good that there aren't these complaints against the government, but there's also a downside to that, that in this situation, the government isn't saying here is a way to fix something in the short term, so that next year or the following year or when it happens again, Fred, things could actually be different at that point.
WHITFIELD: And then, there are a lot accolades that are coming, too.
LEVS: Yes.
WHITFIELD: Some real positive points that are being highlighted in response and preparedness.
LEVS: Right, learning their lessons. Absolutely, and that's a good thing, and the government is, obviously, proud of that. Some officials are talking about that.
On the flip side, there are some complaints, as well. Let me just mention a few, just to be fair. There are some questions about whether certain aircraft were used on time, whether certain plans were followed, also whether the federal government in general, on a broad level, has enough of a plan or system in place to do something about this nationally.
But the difference here, what we're not hearing is the people tackling these fires calling them a sign of government failure and that's what makes it so incredibly different in that respect.
WHITFIELD: Wow.
LEVS: Yes.
WHITFIELD: Well, it's an extraordinary wildfire and, you know, of course, a lot of things are going to be done right and a lot of things wrong, but we're not seeing the kind of complaints, and we're not seeing the evidence of just gross negligence, like we have seen in other disasters.
LEVS: Right, you're seeing parties pull together in a lot of ways, which is a great thing. You're seeing state officials praise ...
WHITFIELD: Yes.
LEVS: ...federal officials in a lot of ways. But also, keep in mind, as you have been reporting, a bunch of fires are still not contained, or are not fully contained ...
WHITFIELD: Yes.
LEVS: ...which means that there's a lot that we really won't know for weeks or months to come.
WHITFIELD: Right.
LEVS: Yes.
WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Josh.
LEVS: Thanks, Fred.
WHITFIELD: Well, even though California firefighters are making progress against the flames, smoke could fill the air for quite some time. That's especially dangerous if you have heart or breathing problems.
CNN's Kathleen Koch has been going over satellite images to learn just how bad the problem is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here at the NOAA World Weather Building south of Washington, D.C., meteorologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use images from satellites high above the earth that are gathered 24/7 to track fires around the country. Right now, their focus, of course, is Southern California.
Mark Ruminski is a fire program team leader. Mark, show me the images you have here. Now, I understand this is from Monday at the height of the fires?
MARK RUMINSKI, NOAA: That's correct. This is a geostationary imagery, which means that we get a picture every 15 minutes so that we can continuously monitor the progress of the fires.
KOCH: And what was striking about these? I can see the smoke rolling up there (ph).
RUMINSKI: Yes, this kind of shows -- this is over the course of about a 24-hour period, and it shows how the fires rapidly moved from up in the hills above San Diego almost down to the coast. KOCH: Now, show me the next image of the smoke plumes. Wow.
RUMINSKI: Again, this is the smoke that extends all the way out 1,000 miles into the Pacific Ocean.
KOCH: Very striking. Let's look at the real time images, because this screen shows the pink blobs, fires burning right now as we speak, correct?
RUMINSKI: That's correct. You can see the bigger fires you got down, obviously, in Southern California, with the bigger blobs. We have some other fires that we're also monitoring.
KOCH: Arizona, Colorado. Now, what about the plumes, what do these mean, these red and green plumes? What are these?
RUMINSKI: That's the areas of smoke that we can see using satellite imagery. The different colors are just, you know, the different intensities of the smoke. The green would be the most dense smoke that we could see.
KOCH: And this indicates a very serious fire, correct? The bigger, the more green, the more serious the fire, the larger the plume, the larger the fire?
RUMINSKI: That's correct.
KOCH: So, again, these are just very small fires. Anything that anyone's worrying about much right now, or this is the main focus?
RUMINSKI: No, this is the main focus. And the fact that you can see all this kind of black area, these are clouds that are moving in. And now that the smoke is moving inland, that means we're getting an on-shore, more moist flow that's going to help the firefighters.
KOCH: Good news and obviously, great information that helps state and local officials better track the fire and plot how they're going to fight them.
Kathleen Koch in Camp Springs, Maryland. Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Well, searching for arson clues now, it's like an episode of "CSI." Battalion fire chief Doug Lannon showed CNN's Anderson Cooper what investigators are actually looking for.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BATTALION CHIEF DOUG LANNON, CALIF. DEPT. OF FIRE PROTECTION: We're going to walk over to this fence here, and one of the things that I might use to indicate direction is I look at the vegetation. We got vegetation that's burned on both sides. So, I'll come up and I'll just pick a spot of the fence and I'll rub my finger on it. And I don't have a whole lot of soot there, there's a little bit. But I'll go on the back side, and you have soot. And so, that tells me that the fire came from that way, came through the fence here. And I'll do it in a number of places.
Let's just use a different finger and do it on this side. A little bit, just a little bit of soot, but on the back side of that, see what I mean? So, and you also have it similar on the backened of this fence post and we'll have some soot on the back side of that, too.
Sometimes, I'll look at areas like this. Now, this bend, they make fence poles out of aluminum now, so they do bend when kids climb over the fence poles. But sometimes, if there's enough vegetation down at the base -- if it heats up, it can actually cause this to burn -- to kind of warp and move into the direction that the fire came from.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, really? So -- because normally, I would think that this would be bending away from the fire, but this might actually might bend into the fire.
LANNON: Yes, no, it actually bends in. And sometimes when the fire, that's one of the ways we can kind of get back to where the fire's less intense. Sometimes the grass heads -- as the fire kind of just moves in, the grass heads will just kind of fall and point in the direction that the fire came from if it's a less intense fire.
OK, I'll use sometimes non-native vegetation. I'll use maybe something that's solid that was on the ground and you'll see that this pipe here. We have some major charring and we have some charring that goes up both sides. So, and if we look back to where we figured the fire was coming from, it's kind of right in line and actually, you see the char pattern on both sides right there?
But there's more char from here to here and actually, the pipe is melted there. You look back up here, and it's somewhat protected. That would also tell me that the fire came from this direction and ...
COOPER: More intense here, more intese.
LANNON: ...near the (ph) pipe, more intense in there where it hit and then it continued on and the lead side of it there has very little damage.
COOPER: It's fascinating. It's amazing, I mean, I feel like a crime scene. It really tells a story.
LANNON: Yes, exactly, yes. It's forensics. You know, we go to the, you know, similar schools for those kind of things. And, you know, indicators and signs and things like that are real helpful for us to do our job.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: All right, we're going to talk a little sports coming up. It's America's game, football. But in London? Well, there, they call it football, but it doesn't look like this. It's more like what we know to be soccer. So, we're going to explain how in the world this game has found its way in London. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: So, that's tomorrow. Today, some sense of normalcy. That's what people in San Diego can expect with their football team coming back to town. The San Diego Chargers will play tomorrow's game as scheduled at Qualcomm Stadium. The stadium had been the largest shelter for people displaced by the fires, but they have all been sent home or to other shelters.
Meanwhile, while the Chargers get to return home, two NFL teams are far from it. They're playing the league's first regular season game across the pond. But does anyone over there really care about American football?
Here's CNN's Phil Black.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Something a little alien to British life is invading London. The National Football League is coming and with it, all the hype surrounding America's biggest sport. Like giant robots, and cheerleaders, they're here to promote the NFL's first regular season match outside of North America.
The Miami Dolphins meet the New York Giants at Wembley Stadium Sunday. It's a 90,000-seat sell-out.
MAYOR KEN LIVINGSTONE, LONDON: We had a request for a million tickets. We could fill Wembley 11 times over this game. And that's what the American Football League want, they want to build a fan base here.
BLACK: Fan base in London and beyond, the NFL is going global. Planning one or two games overseas every year, but it's not just to keep American experts (ph) happy.
ALISTAIR KIRKWOOD, NFL UNITED KINGDOM: Growth in the future clearly means expanding our presence in the global sports marketplace. We have dedicated considerable resources already to the global development of football.
BLACK: Marketing experts say that's because the game is so dominant in the United States, it's business opportunities there are now saturated to build on its $6 billion plus annual revenue, the NFL must look abroad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as you expand the global fan base and, clearly television right sales goes up, you're going to more markets, merchandise goes up and it is the only way, I think, that the NFL can do it.
BLACK: The NFL says it mission is to make America's obsession the world's passion.
(on camera): But in this part of the world, people are already very passionate about other ball sports, like Rugby Union and Rugby League and, of course, soccer. Can there possibly be enough room left in their hearts for American football, as well?
(voice-over): Sports writer Nick Sepanic (ph) thinks so, but admits it could be hard to win over some sports fans.
NICK SEPANIC, SPORTS WRITER: There are people who say, oh, you know, the NFL, they're all sissies, they wear padding, you know, not like rugby players who are happy to go out and break their collar bones and not even talk about it.
BLACK (voice-over): And a quick poll shows the British market might need an education campaign.
(on camera): Do you know what this is?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this a rugby ball?
BLACK: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No? It's a melon?
BLACK: Have you seen one of these before?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not one in -- physically like that, but on the television perhaps, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: National Football League, is that some sort of ball game?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Soccer, American football.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this a ball? National Football League? OK, no, I didn't know what it was.
BLACK: American football.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, OK, (INAUDIBLE), but it's very similar to rugby.
BLACK: Maybe fewer people will think so after Sunday's game.
Phil Black, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Oh, they'll learn to love it, just like we do.
All right, back to Southern California in a moment, their home destroyed by one of the wildfires, but a priceless memento was found intact. That story straight ahead in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: A glimmer of hope in those Southern California wildfires. A pretty amazing discovery, in fact. In the midst of it all, from the ashes, crews uncover a small safe and then locked inside, treasures beyond measure. We get this story now from CNN's Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When screaming neighbors woke Jim Noyes at 4:00 in the morning, he ordered his wife and son out of the house moments before it caught fire.
PARIS NOYES, HOME DESTROYED: No time at all, get into the truck now. And I'm like, but the cat, and he's like, now. And she -- finally, I got her and was able to get, and I dropped my purse, but we were able to get out alive.
CHERNOFF: The Noyes family evacuated a home they had bought only two months ago. All that remained in the ashes was a fireproof safe, its lock burnt off. We asked the San Diego fire department to open it. Inside, were the family's important documents and sentimental items that Jim feared had been burned.
JIM NOYES, HOME DESTROYED: That's all we got in there, your baby pictures.
CHERNOFF: Most important of all to Jim, a letter and a silver dollar his mother had given to his father on their wedding day.
J. NOYES: And that for me, it'd be worth more than anything.
CHERNOFF: After 20 minutes of sawing and chopping, success.
J. NOYES: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE), take care.
J. NOYES: Yes.
CHERNOFF: Behind a shield of metal, concrete and plastic was the item Jim desperately wanted to save.
J. NOYES: There it is, yes. Thank you, thank you. It's right there. That's what I wanted, right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go.
J. NOYES: Thanks. That's what I wanted, right there. That's the most important thing is that envelope right there. Wow, guys, thank you very much.
CHERNOFF: It is a letter that transcends material possessions. Jim's mom Rita passed away last year. On her wedding day 49 years ago, she wrote to her husband, George.
J. NOYES: May we always be as happy as we are today, may our love grow and grow. I'll always love you, my husband. This silver dollar always keep and we will never be completely broke, your loving wife, Rita. August 30, 1958, their wedding day. I lost my mom recently and this meant more to me than anything. CHERNOFF: Jim Noyes lost his home, but thanks to his safe and help from the fire department, he was able to retrieve a family treasure that could never be replaced.
Allan Chernoff, CNN, San Diego, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And that's what so many families are going through there in Southern California, just looking for one little nugget of something to kind of hold on to of what they once had when they end up seeing that their home was in ruins.
Karen, it is so difficult for so many families.
MAGINNIS: It really is.
WHITFIELD: And at this point, I guess, all they can really hope for, a lot of those families who have lost something, is hope that they will be able to rebuild and hope that maybe this weather could cooperate to kind of put out the remaining fires.
(WEATHER REPORT)
WHITFIELD: All right, straight ahead, they murder at random without reason or remorse, but are spree killers monsters who are just mentally ill? Get a chilling look inside their murderous minds. Next on CNN's "SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT: Criminally Insane."
And I'll be back with more of the NEWSROOM at 4:00 Eastern hour, but, first, a check of the day's headlines right after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Hello again, I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
Here's what's making news right now. Take a look at this truck. One like it could provide a lead in California's arson investigation. It's a white Ford F-150 from model years 1998 to 2004. It was seen near the spot where the Santiago fires started in Orange County. A quarter million dollars reward is offered in this arson case.
And leads are pouring in. California authorities now say they're following 1700 tips that may lead to who may have started the Santiago fire. So far, that fire has burned 27,000 acres and destroyed 14 homes.
And FEMA officials today touring an assistance center in Rancho Bernardo, a hard-hit area in San Diego County.
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