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CNN Live Saturday

Fire Wreaks Havoc in Colorado, Arizona

Aired June 22, 2002 - 12:07   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Wildfires lay siege to large parts of the western U.S. Crews are fighting back in Colorado and Arizona in what could be the mother of all fire seasons.

We go first to Lake George, Colorado, where CNN's Mark Potter is standing by for a live report on the Hayman fire -- Mark.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. Well, there was some bad news here overnight. According to the Colorado State Patrol, a van carrying 11 volunteer firefighters from Oregon heading in this direction went off the road and four people were killed.

According to the patrol, the van was heading east on I-70. It had just crossed into Colorado near the Utah border, and it went off the road, it flipped a few times, four people were thrown out of the van, and of the 11, four were killed. The rest were hospitalized. Three of them are now listed in critical condition.

Forestry officials described this as the worst incident so far of the Colorado fires.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBY KITCHENS, FIRE INFORMATION OFFICER: This is a terribly serious and tragic situation, and the whole firefighting community extends our heartfelt sympathy to the families of these firefighters. That's, like I said before, that's the worst consequence of this sort of thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POTTER: Now, as for the Hayman fire itself, north of us here at Lake George, firefighters say that after two days of good weather they were able to contain about 60 percent of this blaze. But they say that bad weather today, stiff winds and lowering humidity could make for more difficult conditions.

Also they are expecting lightening strikes, which would be a problem. That is also the situation in southwest Colorado, a very difficult circumstance.

Now, statewide there are about 10,000 people who are still evacuated, but as we found, some of them are very resilient.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually you can see...

POTTER (voice-over): Outside a Red Cross shelter in Woodland Park, Colorado, Ruth and Ted Johnson live in their van. They and their neighbors were evacuated from a fire zone two weeks ago, and haven't been home since.

Some in the area have lost their homes, but in so many ways the Johnsons are fortunate.

RUTH JOHNSON, EVACUEE: My husband woke up this morning and said to me, "happy birthday, honey." And I said, `yes, it is.' I said, `it is happy.' I said, `after all, we've got each other, we're still here. As far as we know, we've got our home, and we've got these wonderful people here at the Red Cross to take care of us."

POTTER: Inside the shelter, world was out that Ruth Johnson had just turned 79. A wonderful excuse for displaced neighbors suffering together to celebrate.

CROWD (singing): Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Ruth, happy birthday to you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now you know why you're so popular, Ruth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ready, one, two, three.

POTTER: In fact, Ruth Johnson got three cakes and flowers. She shared them with another evacuee.

JOHNSON: It's your birthday too?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, 57 today. Oh, bless you. Thank you, Ruth.

POTTER: A bad situation made better for a day by neighbors and friends who care for each other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

POTTER: Now, of course, not everyone here is coping so well. There is a lot of fear, and concern and anger over these fires, as you can imagine, but at that Red Cross shelter, neighbors were trying to at least make the best of it -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Indeed, Mark, what a wonderful story. Mark Potter, thank you so much.

Well, another wildfire of historic proportions is raging in eastern Arizona this morning.

CNN's Charles Molineaux is standing by live to show us now what's happening there -- Charles.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. Yes, it is mid- morning here in Arizona and that means the temperatures and the wind are starting to pick up, and so is this huge bank of smoke that dominates the western horizon.

This is from the Rodeo fire. We're in Show Low, Arizona, which is currently under alert for possible evacuation. There is currently a canyon in between the fire and us.

If it looks like the fire is going to breach that canyon, this area is going to have to clear out. That means some 15,000 people having to leave their homes, on top of some 8,000 who have evacuated already from a half-a-dozen communities in the path of the Rodeo fire and the Chediski fire which are currently burning separately but more or less, parallel, about 110 miles away from Phoenix. The communities of Pinedale, Eber (ph), Overgaard, Clay Springs, Aeorpine (ph), and Lindon (ph) have already evacuated. And the word from Pinedale is of extreme importance, because it was overrun by the fire yesterday. And the Forest Service is actually declaring some successes there.

Twenty homes were destroyed when the fire swept through, but apparently, 100 homes were actually saved by fire crews on the ground or by air-drops to keep these homes from being destroyed when the fire actually went through Pinedale.

The question is: What is it going to do next? There is a lot of concern about the weather picture here. It is currently very dry and it continues to be sunny, as you can see here. And the question is: If the wind is going to be blowing out of the southwest, will it be blowing the smoke and fire more in this direction? This fire is very big and very unpredictable.

In fact, the predominate weather conditions may or may not have any effect on it at all, because a fire of this size can make its own rules.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM PAXON, U.S. FOREST SERVICE: The fire builds its own weather. When it puts up that big column (ph), it will have a thunder head on top. And the winds are extremely erratic, and a lot of velocity. We could have winds of 50, 60, 80 miles-an-hour in downdrafts just like in a thunderstorm or somewhat like a tornado.

The fire creates its own weather. When it does that, it burns, and sometimes in all four directions. It is not safe to have firefighters on the line. You pull them back to safe zones to keep from getting anybody hurt or killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POTTER: Right now the Rodeo fire has burned 130,000 acres. The Chediski fire has burned some 20,000 acres. If they do come together as the Forest Service now thinks very likely, they're concerned they could have a very hot and very fast fire on their hands, with very little in front of it, between it and some towns. They are evacuated, but the concern is there could be a lot of destruction of property there. They're thinking that if that does happen, this fire combined could end up going to some 300,000 acres.

A second type-one national level incident management team is due to be arriving on the scene of the Chediski fire a little later on today -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Charles, thank you so much.

We'll take it over to Jacqui Jeras now. I think the most powerful statement Paxon had to say is the fire building its own weather, Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And we saw that earlier in the week if you happened to be watching CNN. There was actually a heat vortex that was generated by the fire in Hayman, Colorado.

Now, this also affects the environment. The weather affects the fire, the fire affects the weather and, of course, it affects you in terms of smoke, and fog, and haze, and conditions.

And we want to show you a satellite picture that we received from NOAA that will show you just how large the fire is across the Show Low area. In terms of proximity, you can see just how close these two fires are to each other. The Show Low fire, as we mentioned, there are the two of them. And then you can see the smoke going all the way up into Colorado from the two of these fires.

Now, we have another image that we want to show you, and this one shows you the smoke that moves all the way over into parts of Texas. And the little arrows, if you can pick them out here, it looks like a wall of smoke moving over western Texas and eastern parts of New Mexico. And I also want to mention that my sister, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona said she felt like she was being choked by the smoke, and that is some 100 plus miles away from that fire near Show Low.

Now, our weather graphic will show you our forecast system and what this is going to be doing to the fire situation. We have a trough in the upper atmosphere, and that is driving in the winds from the southwest very strongly. And the stronger the winds are, well, that has a drying effect on the atmosphere as well.

Now, low pressure storm systems also provide a lot of lift, so that means we could get thunderstorms, and they will likely be dry thunderstorms, the kind that don't produce a lot of rainfall, but do produce lightening strikes, humidity and that critical fire weather area highlighted there for today.

Fifteen to 20 percent with those strong southwesterly winds gusting 35 miles plus. So the situation over the next several days, Kyra, does not look good.

PHILLIPS: All right. Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much. We'll check in with you again.

And cnn.com has been hard at work putting together comprehensive background on Western wildfires. You can find detailed maps, amazing photos and in-depth information, including the criminal case against Terry Barton. It's all just a mouse click away at the number one news source on the net, cnn.com.

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