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Wildfires in California, Thousands Evacuated; World Leaders Meet to Fix Global Financial Crisis; Who Will Be Obama's Secretary of State?
Aired November 15, 2008 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everybody, you are in the CNN NEWSROOM, the news is unfolding live on this Saturday, the 15th of November. I'm Betty Nguyen.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And hello to you all, I'm T.J. Holmes.
Fires again in California. Another one to tell you about. Thousands getting out of L.A., we're live with the firefighters.
NGUYEN: And in D.C. right now, leaders from around the world trying to figure out the economic problems.
Also, it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Or is it Obamaland is a tour now? You may want to get on board. Right now you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
HOLMES: But we will start not in happy land right now. This is Sylmar, California. This fire has been going since 10:30 last night, spreading faster than people can run. This is the second wildfire in southern California. It is fueled by near hurricane-force winds. It's driven 5,000 people from their homes, again this is just north of Los Angeles.
Our Kara Finnstrom has made it to the scene in Sylmar, California, been talking to some firefighters. We heard a little earlier one of the firefighters tell you, you know what, they made a little -- in another area, at least, they thought they might have slowed this thing down but looking behind you, my goodness, Kara, so much of the scene we have been seeing buildings being destroyed.
KARA FINNSTROM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, well they're hoping for some help in one area because of the natural terrain, it kind of serves as a natural firebreak. But take a look behind me. This gives you an idea of the force of this fire and with the winds, they have been clocked at up to 70 miles per hour this morning, the conditions we're seeing out here, these embers are continuing to fly and firefighters say, you know, they just really can't predict what's going to happen next.
What you see behind me here is one of the areas where they staged an all-out fight overnight. This is on the campus of a Sylmar area hospital called Olive View. And now firefighters overnight decided to shelter about 200 people in place in the main hospital, which is about a half mile away from this building. And I can tell you we're seeing scenes like this all the way around the hospital. They were able to beat back those flames.
They did take out, you know, evacuate, the most intensive care patients. And that was because they lost power. They were actually having to keep those people alive on ventilators that were powered by hand. So they took out about 36 people overnight and kept the rest in place and as you can see, they just continue to beat back the flames. But right now, about 5,000 homes remain threatened T.J., as firefighters are battling --
HOLMES: Kara, we need to jump in here because we have the Los Angeles mayor talking right now about the situation down there. Let's listen in to Mayor Villaraigosa.
MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, LOS ANGELES: -- acres have been burned. 600 firefighters have been deployed, primarily from the city of Los Angeles and also the L.A. County firefighters who work with us so well. U.S. forestry service is here. There are more than 200 LAPD officers. We are in a unified command, the LAPD, LAFD, LAPD, LA County Fire Department and the forestry service.
We know that we've lost dozens of structures. We can't give you an exact number but it's certainly more than we've lost over the last decade. Because as you know, we haven't lost very many, even in the sesnon (ph) fire in the city of Los Angeles we haven't lost very many structures. We have lost some today, there is no question about it. I can't give you an exact number on that. We want to say and we appreciate your help.
We want folks not to wait until they see the fire. They need to get out of the danger zone, when an LAPD officer or a firefighter asks you to leave please do that. If you wait until the fire gets there, you've waited too long, you just have. These winds are treacherous. You can feel them. They are moving as I've been speaking, I can tell you that people really need to understand that because of these winds, these -- this fire can be on you in a moment's notice.
There are four shelters opened, Kennedy High School, San Fernando High School, Sylmar High School and Chatsworth High School. More shelters may open as the day progresses but those are the ones that are opened right now.
The fire is threatening the power supply of the city of Los Angeles. You should know that. A lot of the lines, the transmission lines are on the I-5 corridor. We need everyone to conserve power today. If the fire threatens the lines bringing power into the city, we may have to move to rolling blackouts. I understand that the temperatures are going to be close to 100 today.
So, folks, please conserve energy. Do not wash today. Don't use your power, you know -- conserve your power as much as possible. As a result of all of this, and the quickness with which this fire is developed and the number of assets we've declared a local emergency. I've just signed that today at 7:53 a.m. We're asking the county to do the same and of course, we're asking the state to join us.
I just want to thank the members of the L.A. Fire Department, the L.A. -- both the L.A. city and L.A. county fire departments, the U.S. Forestry Service, the LAPD, the department of transportation, the park rangers, all of the folks that are here today. We were mentioning that many of us have seen each other more than we've seen our families over the last few weeks. The same people have been out here and I'm just proud that we have the kind of experience in our departments, the kind of professionalism that you see fighting these fires.
I'd like to bring up -- I'd like to bring up Chief Rueda who can give you more specifics regarding this fire from the L.A. city fire department. Chief Rueda?
DEPUTY CHIEF MARIO RUEDA, L.A. COUNTY FIRE DEPT.: Good morning. We gave you a briefing at 0500 this morning. Since that time, the fire as predicted has progressed in a westerly direction. Has spotted over the 5 freeway and is very well entrenched on the other side of the 5 freeway. What we are finding though is as predicted it is running into the sesnon (ph) burn.
But, given these winds and the embers, we are seeing spot fires within some of the residential areas. We have evacuated those areas. And we do have firefighters deployed, making sure those small fires don't turn into big fires and make no mistake about it we're still in a significant fire fight here. These winds are going to stick with us for most of the day, maybe not the 70 miles an hour but, even at 35 and 40, large fires are sustained in these sorts of conditions, just very difficult conditions for us.
As the mayor mentioned we did lose some structures last night in some of the areas but so far, just minor injuries and we're really about saving lives at this point.
QUESTION: Homeowners about their doors being locked or --
RUEDA: We asked them to close their drapes. Close their doors. Close their garage door. Don't leave anything opened. Try to move -- we asked them to do this well before any fire hits, move any combustibles away from the homes. When a police officer knocks on your door, firefighters are in your neighborhood, you need to be moving.
QUESTION: What about the -- what about locking things or unlocking things?
RUEDA: Leaving them opened allows us access without doing a great deal of damage. Leaving them opened allows us to get in there doors, not windows, gates, locked gates, private gates, allows us to get in there to make sure that we have ready access to make sure they don't burn. Los Angeles Police Department, one of their missions is to patrol these neighborhoods after we've evacuated to make certain that those homes are secured.
QUESTION: What is your strategy right now? From the ground, the air, a combination, what?
RUEDA: It's always a strategy of both offensive and defensive. In this case, the defensive part is putting firefighters directly ahead of that flaming front, its structures. But we also have assets from the forest, the county, multiple (INAUDIBLE), multiple aircrafts, trying to bench this thing, create lines that will hold it and contain this fire, trying to contain -- Bob, on the backside of this fire, we do have -- we are punching in dozer lines.
We do have aircraft putting in retardant lines, in the flaming front of this fire, putting firefighters in the front to protect structures is in that defensive strategy.
QUESTION: Mayor, quick question.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me interrupt. Let's let the other speakers come to the podium and then we'll field questions, ok?
VILLARAIGOSA: With us as well, there seems to be in virtually every major incident here in the city of Los Angeles, the L.A. County fire department chief Michael Freeman.
MICHAEL FREEMAN: Thank you very much, good morning. Just to ensure everyone this is a team effort. While the firefighters and the police officers are doing their jobs here, there is much work being done within the state of California. So be sure that in case we need more personnel, that personnel and equipment is moving in this area. We've been in touch with the state, so that is happening.
The other thing we want to emphasize is that even though there have been over 5,000 people evacuated, given the winds and given the movement of the fire, we're asking that everyone stay alert for further evacuation notices because the fire is continuing to move. The firefighters and the police officers can operate much more safely if the public will heed those evacuation orders if they are given.
So, we ask everyone to stay alert to those news broadcasts and to the law enforcement officers coming through your neighborhood, about evacuation. We will continue to work as hard as we can to save the homes. You can certainly help us save lives by heeding those evacuation orders, thank you.
VILLARAIGOSA: Also with us, coordinating the police side of this effort, the evacuation effort, is Chief Moore with the Los Angeles Police Department.
DEPUTY CHIEF MICHAEL MOORE, L.A. POLICE DEPARTMENT: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, good morning. The Los Angeles Police Department is the lead law agency for this fire. Presently, the city is on (INAUDIBLE) alert, all police resources are being held over as we continue to devote resources to this fire. The evacuation area, the ordered evacuation area is as follows.
From the canyon on the eastern boundary, along the northern border of the city of Los Angeles, going west, to Recita Boulevard. Again, on the east, (INAUDIBLE) canyon and as one fashioned along westerly along the border of the city, across Sylmar, across the 5 and 14 interchange, into Granada Hills to the western boundary which is Recita Boulevard at this time. The department is working with fire very closely to anticipate where this fire may move and there may be additional evacuations as the day unfolds. In those ordered to evacuate areas, we have officers that are presently continuing to patrol those areas and announce that closed -- to announce the ordered evacuation.
We also have officers that are patrolling these areas for crime suppression and to insure the safety of those residences as best as possible. The evacuation centers have been announced and I can only stress the importance that they be utilized and that people not remain in these ordered evacuated areas and that they leave. I also would ask that if you have friends or relatives that live in these areas and you cannot contact them, do not go to these ordered evacuated areas.
Work with the police department for us to do that for you. We will do welfare checks to ensure as best possible, that everyone has been able to leave the area. This is particularly important for those who have medical issues or unable to leave on their own -- under their own power. Finally, as we go into the day, the traffic concerns across this northern portion of the San Fernando Valley are going to be extremely important.
The freeways are continuing to be closed. The I-5 freeway is closed for all southbound traffic from the 126 highway interchange, the 14 freeway is shut for all southbound traffic at San Fernando Road. Northbound traffic on the I-5 freeway is shut off at the 118 freeway. Westbound traffic on the 210 freeway is shut off at the 118 freeway. And northbound traffic on the 405 freeway is shut off at the 118 freeway.
So effectively, these freeways are going to be congested at those points and that is so we can control the ingress into this area. We need the citizenry who live in these areas to also recognize to stay off the street. We have a tremendous amount of emergency equipment that needs to move up and down and across the northern boundaries of this fire line. Please, stay out of their way and allow them to move across that area freely. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any questions.
QUESTION: First of all, the air quality, obviously, this tremendous amount of smoke. There are a lot of people who really shouldn't be breathing this, none of us should. But what about people who have real health concerns, the elderly, that kind of thing. What's the advice here?
VILLARAIGOSA: I think the advice is to stay indoors as much as possible and not to be out in the street and particularly, in this area. I think Chief Moore said it, we want people to stay in their homes right now as much as possible unless they've been asked to evacuate. And then we want them to leave as quickly as possible. We don't want them to wait for flames. We want them to move because we wouldn't be asking them to leave if we didn't think they and their families were in danger.
QUESTION: Mayor, what's the city's contingency plan with the power outages? We're talking about high power --
VILLARAIGOSA: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: What's the city's contingency plan, is DWP prepared to deal with this extreme power outage should it happen in that area that we're talking about?
VILLARAIGOSA: Yes. We are prepared to deal with this extreme power outage if it happens. It's not happening at this moment. As we said, we would have to have rolling blackouts so that we reduce the load. But one way for everyone else to cooperate is not to use their appliances unless they have to. That's a real great way, you know, to do that. If you're not living in this area, open up your windows.
Obviously in the area around here, we don't want them to do that. But much is possible. We need everyone to cooperate. With respect to your questions about -- I can tell you I did ask Chief Moore about that question, we have a couple hundred officers here. We are on a tactical alert so we believe that we have enough officers for the proposition 8 demonstration.
I will be there later on both to speak and to monitor for a bit. But as much as possible we're asking people, they don't have to be out in the streets right now please don't. Because we're -- our resources are strained at this moment. We're fully in charge and, you know, we have the resource that we need, but we don't need to strain them any further.
QUESTION: I know you don't have a crystal ball, sir, but given the resources you have, given the possibility that the winds are going to die down, what if they had the rest of the day and tonight, what --
HOLMES: All right. We've been listening in here to a press conference out there in Los Angeles talking about the situation with this particular wildfire that's happening in Sylmar, California, which is about 20 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
But the big thing to come out of here, the big news at least from Mayor Villaraigosa talking about the possibility of rolling blackouts because this fire that has jumped the I-5 corridor has jumped the I-5 interstate I should say. But that main I-5 corridor, the main artery that goes north and south that runs through California, but the fire has jumped and is now threatening a lot of power lines that go up and down that corridor.
So, if that being the case, those are threatened he said they may have to go into rolling blackouts to possibly reduce the strain on their power grids out there. So they're advising people to not use appliances. Don't wash clothes if you don't have to. Don't use electricity unnecessarily if you can help it or they might have to go to this.
Also said 100 degrees expected today in Los Angeles. That doesn't help either of us in here in Downtown, Atlanta. Think about how cold it was when we came in. I can't imagine right now in November but that's L.A. it's a different story out there. So 100 degrees expected and not helping either.
But the winds, some 70 miles an hour we know were gusting earlier, that's near hurricane force but still mainly around 35 plus miles an hour, one of the firefighters said. So a fluid and a changing situation out there that doesn't seem to be getting a whole lot better right now.
NGUYEN: No, but in the meantime some of you have been sending i- reports from the fires. Look at this.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Santa Barbara is on fire.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: You heard it right there. You can hear the wind blowing as you heard from Sean Checketts who shot this, Santa Barbara is on fire. That wildfire continues to grow. It shows Sycamore Canyon in flames. Now he took it from Parma Park where he said he saw wild animals running to escape the flames. Keep those i-Reports coming but please do stay safe. Here's what you do, just log on to i-report.com and load them up. We'll show them on the air.
HOLMES: All right now, Karen Maginnis has been with us this morning keeping an eye on the weather situation. What are they dealing with winds? We're not expecting any precipitation out there, but still, the wind situation?
KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: They are still investigating the cause of these fires that we're looking at. The biggest one right now, the most critical one at Sylmar, that's just about 25, 35 miles to the north-northeast of Los Angeles.
Here are some of the peak wind gusts. I'll point out this camp 9. Camp is the closest to the sensor to measure the winds right around Sylmar and 76 miles an hour has been the peak wind gust that we've seen since overnight Friday into early Saturday. 74 mile an- mile-an-hour winds constitute hurricane force winds. The winds there peaked up 76 miles an hour. Generally speaking coming out across the mountains we're expecting winds between 60 and 70-mile-an-hour gusts.
Here's what's happened, there is a ridge of high pressure that's going to move across the Great Basin. We have a very tight pressure (INAUDIBLE). Here is Los Angeles. I want to take you to just about this region. This is the San Fernando Valley and this backs up to the mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains. What happens is the wind comes over the mountains and the air squeezes, it gets compressed and it heats up. That's why we're looking at temperatures in the 80s and 90s.
Now, you heard the mayor there say we could see wind up around -- temperatures around 100. I'd be surprised if we saw the temperatures that high, but, still, 93 degrees forecast for Los Angeles. Now, here's that Sylmar fire that we're looking at. The areas that have been evacuated, they have pretty much been in this corridor. They shut down interstate 210 in both directions.
Lots of folks tried to head out of L.A. along Interstate 5. Well they have shut a portion of that down as well. Even if they didn't the visibility would be so bad you just wouldn't be able to travel there. But as these winds move over the canyons and through the valleys, that's what we're looking at the highest wind peaks across those zones.
We had another big story today in addition to these fires across southern California, and that has been the deadly storms in North Carolina. Already two reported fatalities, we have some pictures here for you from our affiliate, WRAL.
Look at all of this debris just kind of spread around. This happened just to the east of Raleigh in Wilson County. They did have thunderstorms. They were under severe thunderstorm watches. They had some localized warnings as well. Somebody has already been very fast. They've already put this blue tarp over this building, whatever this is, if it's either a home or, perhaps it's a church or some other sort of facility.
But we don't have any wind estimates yet. And we did see quite a bit of damage, farm equipment strewn over fields. We did see some of these buildings that have been flattened. They look like out- buildings. But there you can see some of the bricks that have been torn down, the trees just stripped and in most cases, of their leaves and some bark. But the line of thunderstorms is now moving off the coast of North Carolina.
Back to you, T.J. and Betty, it's quite the weather day today.
NGUYEN: Absolutely. A lot going on there and it is not close to being over, apparently, because they are fighting in neighborhoods where homes -- entire neighborhoods on fire because of this.
HOLMES: We're keeping an eye on those fires, also keeping an eye on an economic fire if you will that's being going for a little while now.
The global economic crisis, President Bush hosting several of the world leaders in Washington today. We're on top of that story as well, stay here.
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HOLMES: All right, 20 world leaders are hard at work right now trying to fix the global world crisis. They are in D.C. right now, President Bush calling this meeting, this emergency summit to figure out what caused the global financial meltdown and how to make sure this does not happen again. Earlier the president spoke about the progress heading into today's meeting.
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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am pleased with the progress we're making on to one, address the current crisis. I am pleased that we're discussing a way forward to make sure that such a crisis is unlikely to occur again. And I am pleased that the leaders reaffirm the principles behind open markets and free trade. One of the dangers during a crisis such as this is that people will start implementing protectionist policies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: CNN's Richard Quest is also in Washington this morning, he joins us live. OK, Richard, expecting anything concrete to come out of these meetings, any policy?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I don't expect a detailed policy by the end of the day. What I do expect is a very firm road map of the committees that will be set up as the sort of direction they are going to take and when they'll meet again. Probably I'm hearing next April is when the leaders will meet again to review the progress.
In terms of the immediate, because I think people are more concerned about their jobs now and getting bank lending started now, what I think they're going to say and what I'm hearing from the communique is that it's going to be those countries who can offer fiscal stimulus's will pledge themselves to some coordinated activity to refloat the global economy.
And crucially, they will say they are still in favor of free- market economies. From President Bush's point of view that will be a major development because he's desperately concerned that the call for greater regulation by some European countries will overwhelm them at this particular meeting. So, it's going to be a lot of calls for what happens now and a nuance response for the future.
NGUYEN: You have a lot of moving parts at this summit if you will. 20 leaders from the most developing industrialized countries around the world they make up, what, 90 percent of the world's economy. With all of those people in that room, can you truly get something concrete done?
QUEST: You can get something done by looking between the top members at the work that's been done before they sat down in the room. Although a large table of some 20 -- there's actually I think about 26 of them in total with the IMF and the World Bank and the Fidelity Corp and the U.N. But really, in the back rooms of Washington and in the hallways and hotels they've been hammering out this communique for the last several days. And that's where you're going to get the real work done.
On the significance, if you like of the overarching, the big picture we're looking at now of the G-20, it is the fact that China, India, Brazil, Mexico, the developing world in many cases, is there in the room and I think the big change from this summit for the future is you'll never get a small group of people. The rich men's club, as they call it, you'll never get them meeting again.
NGUYEN: All right, CNN's Richard Quest, thank you. The short list for the next secretary of state, sources close to President-elect Barack Obama tell us that he is considering two former campaign rivals. CNN's Ed Henry is live in Chicago with the latest on this transition, OK, give us the names, what are you hearing?
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Betty.
The big name, of course, is Senator Hillary Clinton. She met with President-elect Barack Obama here in Chicago two days ago. Bill Richardson is the other former campaign rival, the governor of New Mexico. Here was here in Chicago yesterday. But a lot of the buzz obviously focusing on Hillary Clinton, some obvious reasons for that. They had such a long drawn out primary, people were wondering how in the world could she be secretary of state, given the sharp differences they had, specifically on foreign policy, the war in Iraq in particular.
But what we're hearing from Barack Obama's inner circle, is that he's serious about taking a look at least at whether he can pull together a so-called team of rivals. The book by Doris Turns Goodwin about Abraham Lincoln's cabinet that Barack Obama has mentioned before, said he enjoyed so much because because it talked about how Lincoln pulled together sort of a robust debate within his cabinet instead of just having "yes" people around him, sort of challenging the president's thoughts, policies, et cetera.
So, the thinking right now is that Hillary Clinton is the kind of person who could bring a lot of international star power to this job. There also could be some drawbacks of course, I mentioned the differences they've had over policy. Also the fact that she could end up overshadowing Barack Obama on some foreign policy issues.
And then as I mentioned, there are other candidates though, it's not settled yet. Bill Richardson but also, John Kerry, democratic senator from Massachusetts. And then a couple of republican names have been floating out there, as well as you flesh out the potential team of rivals. Dick Lugar from Indiana, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
So, they're trying to cast a very wide net, but a lot of the buzz surrounding that meeting that Barack Obama had with Hillary Clinton, because some democratic sources telling us that Hillary Clinton left that meeting thinking the job will be hers if she wants it, Betty.
NGUYEN: As we wait for official word on that, Barack Obama has been very busy with some other key White House jobs. What have you heard?
HENRY: That's right. New information this morning, Barack Obama has selected Valerie Jarrett, long-time ally it was expected he would do this but is making her head of White House inner governmental affairs. A powerful sort of behind the scenes post. Ron Klain has been selected to be chief of staff to Vice President-elect Biden, he's well known in democratic circles, served the same role for Vice President Gore back in the Clinton days.
And finally, Phil Schilero is going to be the president liaison to the congress, a longtime congressional democratic aide. So what they are doing is sort of laying the building blocks now of this incoming administration but of course the much bigger names yet to come still. Who will be in that cabinet -- Betty?
NGUYEN: Absolutely. All right, CNN's Ed Henry, thank you for that.
We do invite you to stay with us for the latest weather conditions fanning the flames out in southern California, breaking news today. This fire that they are trying to get a handle on, it is really blowing through neighborhoods and burning down homes. We have the latest.
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HOLMES: Continuing to follow the situation in Sylmar, California, where a fire has consumed some 3,000 acres threatening thousands of homes. We look at our affiliates who've been helping us along covering this story this morning. KCAL, one of them, the other KABC, we're looking at both of these.
But let's take a listen in to our affiliate KCAL on the right there. We see the reporter, he stopped talking for a second but we'll listen in to see his interaction with the news anchors back at the anchor desk.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How thick and heavy that smoke is out there and we have some of the best firefighters in the country, thank goodness for that. They are doing structure protection right now and Glenn if I may, I just want to mention, when Randy was talking about eucalyptus trees, here we are, with now three days of fire coverage, remember Thursday evening in Montecito when the fires broke out.
Lots of eucalyptus trees in that area that actually provided fuel for those brushfires burning so these firefighters are doing the best they can to get those trees hosed down so that this fuel is -- does not fuel the fire as much as it certainly would have because of that oil. We know that we have about 600 firefighters that are on the scene fighting this blaze right now.
And, you know, 10:30 last night, the spectacular pictures and we sort of had a feeling that we would wake up to something like this, this morning. The problem, obviously, last night there were no helicopters flying. No fixed-wing aircraft but as of, I believe, around 6:40 this morning, that was the first time we saw that sakorfsky (ph) helicopter out there gathering water and dropping it on this fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's going to be a big help. As we mentioned earlier, the mayor has declared a state of emergency here in Los Angeles. A major power line coming into L.A. County has been shut down because of the fire so the DWP is telling everybody that the power grid is really getting taxed right now. And with more on that, let's go to Sara Fidel in Sylmar. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Glenn, I'm here with DWP general manager David Nahigh (ph), you are telling us that it is critical right now to really send that message out of conservation. Give me a sense of what DWP has been doing since this fire started?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been monitoring the situation, pretty much, all through the night. We have our in-basin natural gas plants are fully operational. We do have two lines, two major lines that normally import power into the city. They are not performing that function at this point. We have all together, five lines, three of them are --
HOLMES: All right. Listening to one affiliate there. We're going to go over to the other on the other side of your screen, another one, KABC. Let's have some live pictures up, a reporter out as well, let's listen in to them.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John and Lisa, that's the latest from my vantage point, back to you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Melissa, is there any sense, as this thing gets close to the sesnon burn area that they're going to get a break here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's actually really close. For me this is almost like deja vu because I am seriously, one street over from where I was for several hours covering the sesnon fire. So it does look like it is going to burn into that area. But as you heard the firefighters talking about, their main concern not so much about the brush, but embers blowing and igniting all of these homes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly, so it's certainly going to meet up with that area, at least from what I can tell but you know, that's going to help the fire but certainly, that doesn't help --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're desperate for good news here, Melissa, that's our problem. We're trying to find a bright side to the story and there isn't one so far. Thanks for your report. We certainly appreciate it.
NGUYEN: We've been listening to our local affiliate there, KABC and KCAL in California. And as you can see, this is obviously, a story that is still developing as they try to get it under containment. Let's go to our correspondent on the ground, CNN's Kara Finnstrom who is in Sylmar.
Kara, tell me this is not the daycare that you were standing in front of a while ago because right now I see nothing but charred embers.
FINNSTROM: This is the same daycare Betty and this just gives you an idea of the force of this fire and how much it's consumed since we've been speaking with you during these couple of hours this morning. You can take a look here, you can see, we've been watching this daycare center just kind of collapse.
This is on the grounds of an area hospital, the Sylmar area hospital which is called Olive View. Overnight, it sheltered about 200 people in place here. It had to evacuate the most critically ill patients because they actually lost power here and they were using hand-powered ventilators to treat those patients.
Here in this structure, you can see that this fire burned down Betty all the way through the floorboard so I mean completely destroyed, the sprinklers are still on here. The good news at this hospital is that they were able to beat back the flames. They feel they have secured this area. There were firefighters here up until about an hour ago and they have now left to go to areas which are higher priority.
And, Betty, there are plenty of those because the winds are continuing out here. They are now at 35 to 40 miles per hour as compared to the near hurricane-force winds that were out here overnight, up to 70, which really whipped this thing out of control. But this is an area where there are a lot of homes and the fire is not burning all that far away.
So, the concern is that these embers can pick up. At this point, 5,000 homes have been evacuated, authorities are urging folks here to really listen to their local radio, to the TV and make sure if there's an evacuation for their area to move out quickly because they say these flames are spreading fast.
NGUYEN: Yes, there is no time to wait. That's what we've heard all morning long. Kara Finnstrom joining us live from Sylmar, California, where much of that area is still on fire at this hour.
We will continue to follow this story and get the latest on the weather. Because that could be key into pushing this fire into containment mode. Stay with us.
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HOLMES: Let's head back over to Karen Maginnis in the weather center, such a big part of this story. You know, its flames out there but this is very much a weather situation as well.
MAGINNIS: It really is. We don't know what caused those fires but we know what is fanning them and spreading it and that is the wind. A moderate Santa Ana event. We have a ridge of high pressure that's going to move across the great basin. As it does the wind comes out of the northeast and the east. It goes over those canyons and through those valleys and some of the passes and it speeds up, it heats up and we get that hot air gusty winds, and those low humidities.
What do I mean by low humidity? A low humidity in Charleston, South Carolina, is a lot different than the humidities that come out here when those dry winds blow in across southern California. Ten to 15 percent, those are the humidities that we're looking at. So there's not enough moisture in the air to kind of suppress these fires and it looks like this is going to progress, at least until the afternoon hours. It will start to taper off. It will be windy again tomorrow. But it looks like at least it's going to taper off just a little bit.
I want to point out some of the peak winds we've seen the early part of Saturday morning, and point out this camp nine, I put an asterisk here because this is the closest sensor to Sylmar and it is in the San Fernando Valley. 76-mile-an-hour winds which means it is hurricane force.
Now, I want to show you, here is Los Angeles. We're going to travel up here to San Fernando, here's the valley, here are the mountains. The wind comes over those mountains as I mentioned, it compresses, it heats up and it speeds up. That's why we're looking at wind gusts, perhaps on the order of 60 to 70 miles an hour and as you saw there at camp nine near Sylmar, a 76-mile-an-hour gust reported there.
So, we've got the strong winds continuing until 4:00 p.m., officially, that could get extended, Betty and T.J. but nonetheless the wind is the major factor for spreading the fires. But we don't know what caused it.
Back to you.
NGUYEN: All right. It may take a little time for that too though. Thank you Karen.
HOLMES: Thank you, Karen.
And, again, we are keeping our eye on the situation out there. The wind so much a part of it and as she said, those high winds, 74 miles an hour folks, that's a category one hurricane. And those are the type of winds that are whipping this fire, the Sylmar fire still burning, still not contained and we are still covering it for you.
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NGUYEN: Some UPS drivers in California are learning the lessons of preventive medicine by taking yoga.
HOLMES: Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more in this fit nation report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): its 7:00 a.m. at Synergy Yoga Studio in California's wine country. But inside you're not going to find your typical yoga student.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really balances my life a little bit better. My body is balanced more. It centers myself a lot.
GUPTA: This class is full of UPS drivers. For Scott Stevenson and many of his fellow drivers staying fit is part of the job. He climbs up these steps about 400 times a day, making more than 150 deliveries. So the thought of doing more exercise, especially in a yoga studio never even crossed his mind.
SCOTT STEPHENSON, UPS DRIVER: Last year was the first time I've ever done it and I've been doing it twice a week for over a year now.
GUPTA: This twice weekly pilgrimage of UPS drivers from Napa Valley to the yoga studio started more than a year ago when health and safety manager Mike Yates grew concerned over the number of on the job injuries.
MIKE YATES, UPS HEALTH & SAFETY MGR.: To be a UPS driver it's a physical job. You have to keep yourself in top physical condition in order to perform the job safely day in and day out.
GUPTA: So he began introducing the drivers to things like yoga, nutrition classes, stretching, walking. The results have been spectacular.
YATES: It affected us so positively, it's amazing. We have a little tag phrase we use where it's safe by choice, not by chance. It's all the little decisions that I watch people make that make a change.
GUPTA: For Scott, picking up yoga has helped him find more balance in his life. Given him more energy. Helped him quit smoking.
STEPHENSON: It's probably one of the best things I've ever done.
GUPTA: He says it sure beats going to a gym.
STEPHENSON: I lift boxes all day and the last thing I want to do is go lift weights.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.
(END OF VIDEOTAPE)
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NGUYEN: Well, as the fire keeps moving, evacuation orders they are expanding.
HOLMES: A lot of people want to keep up with that. Josh Levs here now to find out if your area is under an evacuation order.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, because it keeps changing as you guys are saying. Let's just do this, let's zoom in on the board behind me. I know a lot of people in that area are watching us this morning. We have a major story, it's our lead story on cnn.com but I want to flip over to this for a second.
This is the LAFD blog. All you need to do is web search the LAFD blog and they're leading right now with their evacuation order for the fire. Everything in blue is what's being evacuated and it keeps changing. There's a way to make this map bigger so I'm going to.
Anyone who would be under evacuation orders will be familiar enough with the area to know when you're seeing interstate 5, golden state highway and any of the other major landmarks around here, the L.A. reservoir. So keep an eye on that if you're in that area. That's the LAFD blog.
Now, let's jump over here for a second, I want to show you something. This was it earlier this morning. This was the same evacuation order at the time. But as we reported, it's since jumped over interstate 5, that's why it's so much bigger right now. And it's a reminder of how quickly things can change. Stay tuned to us and keep an eye on the website there.
Now, if you might be affected by the tea fire, county of SB, the county of Santa Barbara, county of sb.org is listing them right here under evacuation orders. If you're in Santa Barbara area and you're concerned, you might have an evacuation, check out this list, you'll see what the latest is there.
Now, one more thing I want to show you before I bring you back to Betty and T.J., this is our top story right now as I was saying, it's about, see here fire drives more Californians out of their homes. We have a map for you here, anyone in the country who might be interested what's going on, check this out. You can just click on one of the fires it brings up some video for you. You'll be able to see the latest video that we're getting on these fires throughout the day. And we are getting a lot of i-reports today too and we're encouraging people to send your i-reports if the wildfires are affecting you.
But I'm going to hyper emphasize this, don't go to any danger at all. Before we show anything on the air, we very carefully scrutinize these things, talk to people, don't put yourself in danger. But if you safely have pictures, photos, videos, just your stories, send them to us at ireport.com. It's really helping us tell the rest of the world what's going on in that area. Betty and T.J. we'll have more of those next hour.
NGUYEN: All right, thank you so much, Josh.
HOLMES: The NEWSROOM of course continues at the top of the hour, Fredricka Whitfield, in the house. And boy, we have a fire to hand off to you today.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Oh boy, there's a whole lot going on, on the West Coast and on the East Coast, so we're going to watch all of those developments on both coasts. And then right in the middle, Nebraska, you all know about this ordinance or this law that now, a huge effort underway to try to reverse it. It means that parents can drop off their unwanted children. Our legal experts will be delving into this to find out exactly how efforts might be underway to try to reverse it come Monday.
Meantime, here in Atlanta his was the face and voice of Atlanta morning news for a long time and then he became the lead story. Warren Savage sits down with me and talks about exactly what happened. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN SAVAGE: Warren Savage sitting in you know suits and ties, dwindled down to an orange jump suit in the Forsyth County jail, asking myself, how did I get here?
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: He's going to sit down with me and he talks very candidly about how he got there and how he's now tried to turn his life around and in the interim become an inspiration to a lot of people who kind of take that wrong road just like he did. He only blames himself and he hopes to be an inspiration to a lot of people and people who are in his age bracket, in the 40's. And people in their 50s, who kind of take that wrong turn and how you get your life back on track. He's very candid, it's very sobering and inspirational in a lot of ways too.
NGUYEN: Yes, it's quite a story, absolutely. All right, a lot coming up. Looking forward to it, thank you, Fred.
HOLMES: We will see you shortly. And we're continuing to follow the fires, another live picture here to show you out of Sylmar, California. Another house here on fire, this is a ground level shot, we've seen some of these from on high from the helicopters. But this is what people are going through. We don't have a count on how many structures burned.
But we have seen and really almost countless, just we've been seeing with our own eyes here, as we've watched live over the past few hours with our viewers here. Fredricka, we'll take this over here in just a moment but continue to follow the California fires. Also want to let you know about the five days left to vote for your favorite CNN hero.
NGUYEN: Absolutely, just go to cnn.com/heroes to see their stories, you can vote and then be sure to join Anderson Cooper thanksgiving night to find out who will be CNN's hero of the year. Vote now at cnn.com/heroes.
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WHITFIELD: A look from the CNN NEWSROOM this afternoon, we continue to watch developments in the Los Angeles area, terrible flames wiping out homes and threatening others in the town of Sylmar. Let's take a look right now at live pictures there, thanks to our affiliate KCBS there. You see that this is what's been taking place overnight, this is what some people are waking up to this morning. There have been a number of evacuations as well.
We want to listen in right now.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just want to let everybody know due to programming commitments, we have college football coming up here on CBS 2 at 9 o'clock this morning so what we want you to do is switch over to our sister station KCAL 9 where we will continue our coverage of this Sylmar fire which broke out last night beginning at about 10:30 last night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it's still burning at this hour so please switch over to KCAL 9 where we will be on the air covering the rest of this fire for --
WHITFIELD: Sorry about that, we lost the audio and the pictures there but we're going to continue to pick it up on the dramatic images that are coming out of Los Angeles there just north of the Los Angeles.
