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Forest Service Worker To Be Accused of Setting Fire, Sources Say

Aired June 19, 2002 - 14:07   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: The forest service worker accused of starting that massive wildfire near Denver is due back in court tomorrow, and prosecutors now question her story.

CNN's Rusty Dornin is outside the southern command center, in Lake George, Colorado, where the battle against the Hayman fire is being planned.

Hi, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, you know federal prosecutors will probably be arguing tomorrow that they believe that Terry Barton deliberately set that fire, that it was no accident, that she was not just burning a letter from her estranged husband.

It says in the affidavit they believe that she deliberately did it. She was out on patrol, looking for illegal campfires. She's a forest service employee. She knew what she was doing.

Also, the forensic investigators are saying by the character of the way the fire started, it was not, as she said, inside the campfire ring. It was actually outside, underneath the brush.

So tomorrow they'll be presenting their argument in court in Denver.

But here with us right now is John Cronin, who actually is a neighbor and has been friends here with Terry Barton and, John, you say you don't believe that she deliberately set this -- why?

JOHN CRONIN, NEIGHBOR: No. She's been a forest service employee for years, and I don't believe she had the intention of causing any destruction, any damage at all. I don't believe that.

DORNIN: Why to you say that? What kind of person is she?

CRONIN: Very hard worker. Very honest person. She's a very nice lady.

DORNIN: But there's some animosity in the community towards her.

CRONIN: Yes, there is. And that's, I'm sure because of the damage and time that's gone by now.

DORNIN: But there's animosity -- but you said a lot of other folks don't believe she deliberately set it either.

CRONIN: No. I'm sure there's a lot of people in the Forest Service and work in this area that know her that don't believe that that's the truth.

DORNIN: John Cronin, thank you very much for joining us.

Here in the Hayman fire, it's just been announced -- it's up to 127,000 acres. It's made quite a jump yesterday. We had some very severe fire weather yesterday, and here to talk to us kind of about what's going on today, Steve Segin with the U.S. Forest Service.

Steve, how about today? What are we seeing today? What's going on today?

STEVE SEGIN, U.S. FOREST SERVICE: What we're seeing today is we don't have as erratic fire behavior as we had yesterday.

The cold front that was coming through moved in a little earlier. We had a little cooler temperatures, a little higher humidities. So you can start to see the columns starting to come up now. It doesn't look as great as it did at this time yesterday. But what it is showing is that the fire is making some advances and burning up some fuel.

DORNIN: But I understand yesterday, you had some pretty extreme fire behavior. Talk about that. I understand there were some -- what do they call them, whirls?

SEGIN: We had a fire whirl, which really indicates that we had a lot of unstable air.

And a fire whirl is essential like a small tornado or a dust devil, and it swirls around in the fire, fire created.

DORNIN: And that creates very dangerous situations for firefighters, right?

SEGIN: It is. Wind is one of the dangers firefighters face, because unstable winds move the fire around. It can jump the line, it can trap firefighters. Firefighters have to be very aware all of the time.

DORNIN: OK, and you've got a lot -- we hear the helicopters now picking up water, that sort of thing. Throwing everything at it today? What are you throwing at the fire today?

SEGIN: Well, we're hitting it hard. We're hitting it with helicopter bucket drops, we're hitting it with bulldozer lines, with retardant, hand crews, water -- whatever we can get on the fire, we'll try to get a hold.

DORNIN: OK, great. Steve Segin, thank you very much, from the U.S. Forest Service.

It does look like they're saying today that they don't believe there's going to be any more evacuations. That's good news, that there is a slight improvement in the weather -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Rusty Dornin. Thank you so much.

Now back to that top story we've been following all this afternoon, for about two hours now -- the suicide bomber striking the area in Jerusalem.

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