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CNN Live Today

Investigators Now Say Colorado Fire Deliberately Set

Aired June 19, 2002 - 10:01   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Investigators questioning a Forest Service worker story about how Colorado largest wild fire in history started. Terry Barton said she started the fire accidentally when she was burning a letter from her estranged husband. However, the investigators now say the scene was staged, and they suspect the fire was deliberately set.

Hot windy conditions are kicking up those wild fires in Colorado. Up to 2,000 more people are now being evacuated from their homes near Denver, and investigators taking another look at the story being told by Terry Barton. Now Barton is charged with starting the Hayman Fire outside of Denver. She says it was all an accident. Authorities, though, are not so sure.

Let's check in now with our Rusty Dornin, who is checking in from Lake George. She's got the latest on this new development.

Good morning, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, you know this is the woman that originally reported the fire and claimed that someone else had set it, that she had come upon this campfire that had gone awry and had started the underbrush on fire. So investigators were very interested in talking to her, and it turns out here she lied to them on two different occasions, claiming that she had smelled smoke. But they kept seeing inconsistencies in her story, the wind direction, that sort of thing.

Also, fire investigators are looking at the direction that this fire began burning, and they claim that it started outside this campfire ring. Now Terry Barton is claiming that she burned this letter from her estranged husband. She was very angry. She threw it in the campfire ring and tried to get it out and somehow it escaped. But fire investigators are claiming that the underbrush was outside this ring, that she never started the fire inside the ring.

Now when we spoke to the U.S. attorney the other day, he said that they do believe that she willfully set this fire. She's a Forest Service employee. She's on patrol to stop this illegal campfires. She knew better in the first place. So they were not believing her story from the very beginning, but they are outlining their arguments, in their entirety, during the hearing tomorrow in Denver.

Now, meantime here at the Hayman Fire, it's just some 7,000 acres from yesterday. It's now up to 120,000 acres. Now we are here at the southern center, fire center in Lake George, where a lot of folks are coming for information and that kind of thing. Also, just a little while ago, some evacuees who have not been into their homes, if John Kozar (ph), our photographer will follow along and show you, this is the road that has been closed for days.

Now there are some homes back there that have been burned. A little while ago some folks tried to come through or apparently are coming through. They're letting them in for a few hours, and many of them may be going to homes that are completely burned down. So the fire officials are letting folks in here today. They say they are trying to really build a big bulldozer line just south of here to protect against -- for Woodland Park, which is one of the major population centers up here in the mountains. So we're still very concerned.

The weather conditions are the same, which means that it's going to be hot and very dry and that the wind gusts are expected. And when those wind gusts come up, that's when the spotting starts. The trees -- the fire in the trees that can throw the fire up to half a mile ahead, and I was just talking to one of the fire guys here who said that they really had problems yesterday and had to pull off the fire lines because the winds were so aggressive. So still a lot of problems here. Folks still -- thousands of people poised for evacuation, and over 7,000 people who have already been forced out of their homes -- Leon?.

HARRIS: That just sounds like it's getting worse and worse. Real quick, Rusty, are they bringing more firefighters in from around the country?

DORNIN: From what I understand, there's like 3,000 here now, and I don't know of any more that are coming in. They're continuing to do drops, air drops and that sort of thing. They just have to get in the right lines, fire lines, to be able to stop this thing and to be able to start do control burns and push the fire back.

HARRIS: Got you. All right, we'll check the weather and all that stuff, too, in just a bit.

Rusty Dornin, thank you very much. We'll talk with you in a bit.

And those wildfires burning in Colorado right now are spewing heavy smoke as you just heard from Rusty's report, and smoke is affecting the air quality in the Denver area, as well as the surrounding suburbs; and the bad air probably won't be clearing out any time soon even if the fires are squelched.

Tamara Banks from our affiliate KWGN takes a look now at how people are dealing with that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAMARA BANKS, KWGN REPORTER: It's a bright blue Colorado sky, but dark, dingy air.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really bad out today.

BANKS: So bad the sun had a hard time popping through the muck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of smoke.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Has been for a couple days.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's choking me. It's thick. It burns my eyes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Instead of eating Cheerios this morning, I felt like I woke up and smoked a carton of Camels.

BANKS: The very young and elderly, and those with respiratory and heart problems should stay indoors and make sure they take their meds. But even healthy people are finding themselves getting sick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just went to the doctor. They said I had a cold. My lungs were infected by this air or whatever. I exercised in it, and that's how I got sick.

BANKS: Best advice, don't exercise outside. Use recycled air in your car air conditioner, and take a deep breath. And get ready for a smoky summer in the Mile High City. Tamara Banks, WGN News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: All right. Thanks to my good friend Tamara. Appreciate that Tamara Banks, from KWGN.

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