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CNN Live At Daybreak

Fire Officials Hope Year Will Not Bring Many Fires to West

Aired June 15, 2001 - 08:10   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.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: In northern Arizona, firefighters are holding their own against a wildfire near Flagstaff. Lower winds and falling temperatures are helping crews keep the 1,200-acre blaze from spreading any more. Fire officials hope this blaze is not a preview of things to come in the tender, dry West.

More on that from our environment correspondent Natalie Pawelski.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a Montana hillside, loggers salvage tarred trees, evidence of last year's record-breaking fire season, when 90,000 fires burned across the American West.

Now the word among Western fire officials is dire: This year could be even worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're all scared, you know; what the network says is we've got a really bad fire season coming up. It's dry; it's dry early.

PAWELSKI: In Montana, where a million acres burned last year, this winter snow path was 40 percent below normal, and spring rains have not made up the difference.

The land is dust dry. Forest floors are littered with kindling and waiting, and the big trees are parched too. In some places, their moisture content is down to 11 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's about the same type of moisture content you get in dried lumber. So our fields in the forest are extremely dry.

PAWELSKI: Fire officials say the areas most at risk are the northern Rockies and the Pacific Northwest.

(on camera): Here in Montana, a June snowstorm, following a week of shorts-and-T-shirt weather, is a reminder of how quickly the weather can change. Fire officials here say there's still enough time for enough rain to fall to put a damper on this year's fire season.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The key for us is going to be whether or not we get probably about normal precipitation in June, July and August. If we do, we'll probably be OK. If we don't, we have a potential for some pretty severe fire conditions.

PAWELSKI (voice-over): Fire is a natural feature of the American West. The forest and grasslands are adapted to periodic low intensity burns that clear out the underbrush. But decades of active fire fighting have left the western woods littered with accumulated kindling, and as the region's population continues to climb, there are more people and more homes in harm's way, and ever higher stakes in fighting the inevitable fires.

Natalie Pawelski, CNN, Missoula, Montana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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