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American Morning

Firefighters say Florida Wildfires are Contained

Aired April 20, 2001 - 09:04   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the fight against wildfires in Florida. Arson is being blamed for some of the blazes there.

Our Eric Philips joins us live; he is in North Port, Florida, that is in Sarasota County.

Eric, good morning.

ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Daryn.

Here in Sarasota County there is a very pungent odor of smoke in the air; that's because thousands of acres have been burning here. We're standing in front of the Carlton Reserve, which is a wildlife area about 19,000 acres, but 5,400 acres have been burned. And those acres were burning since Tuesday when a controlled burn was set that, essentially, got out of control. Firefighters have been battling it all week long. They say it's now contained.

About 12 miles away from here, but still in Sarasota County, though, there was another fire that began yesterday morning; that was the Atwater-San Mateo fire. About 1,700 acres burned in that fire, and that is one of the fires considered to be suspiciously set because there's no other factors they can attribute to that fire except arson.

Then, coincidentally -- or perhaps not so coincidentally -- about six miles south of there in Port Charlotte, Florida seven fires set yesterday around the same time as the fire set in the Atwater-San Mateo area. All seven of those fires also expected to be suspicious in nature, also expected to be arson. They're all being investigated right now.

One common thread with all these fires, though, is that firefighters are keeping an eye on the weather. Although weather conditions are expected to be favorable today, if the wind shifts it could burn some of those -- or it could blow some of those embers into unburned areas and cause another flare-up. Also, they're keeping an eye on the humidity. Overnight the winds died down, the humidity rises. That's good for fire, but during the day usually the wind will pick up and the humidity will lesson, and that's bad for fires.

So firefighters right now are keeping an eye on all these fires; weather conditions are favorable and right now they're saying the fires are contained.

Eric Philips, CNN live in Sarasota County, Florida.

KAGAN: Eric, thank you very much; we'll check back with you later in the day.

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