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American Morning

Two Ferocious Fires Continue to Burn in California

Aired August 28, 2001 - 09:01   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We start in California with two ferocious fires that continue to burn. One was deadly, both disastrous. Two pilots were killed when their tanker plane collided while battling a 200-acre blaze in Mendocino, California. That's near Hoffland. Authorities have arrested one person for allegedly causing that fire. Another person is being questioned about possible involvement. The fire the pilots were fighting burned four structures and threatened more than a dozen others.

This morning, firefighters are gaining the upper hand after working through the night on another wildfire in California. For the latest on the 1,800-acre blaze in Los Angeles County, we go live now to CNN's Hena Cuevas who is in Castaic.

Good morning.

HENA CUEVAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Firefighters are starting early this morning with their new plan of action, trying to take advantage of the low temperatures and the high humidity in the area. The brush fire which started around 12:45 yesterday has covered an area of about 1,800 acres and is about 80 percent contained. High temperature and extremely low humidity contributed to the fire's quick spread, even prompting officials to close down interstate five, which connects Sacramento to San Diego for a few hours.

Officials, though, are pretty optimistic, saying they will be able to contain the fire by 6:00 this afternoon. Yesterday, there were 700 firefighter at the scene. Today there's only 200.

And this morning we will be able to talk to Captain Henry Rodriguez of the LA County fire department.

How do you feel this morning? How optimistic are you, as far as efforts and the weather today?

CPT. HENRY RODRIGUEZ, L.A. COUNTY FIRE DEPT.: We are optimistic that we are going to get full containment by 6:00 p.m. tonight. We worked hard yet with our equipment or crews to get a handle on this fire. So right now, what we're going to do is get the full containment, get it controlled, from and there, we'll be real comfortable. We'll be able to send researchers out.

CUEVAS: What is the most dangerous thing? What are you most afraid of? Controlling fires is pretty unpredictable?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, absolutely. When you have the weather conditions that favorable for our fires, we always worry about that. Even if fires are contained, a lot of times they can jump those containment lines. So obviously, we're worried about that. As long as we keep our resources working, and we continue our efforts, we hopefully won't have that problem.

CUEVAS: Tell me a little bit about the number of firefighters. Why the reduction?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, obviously, at our peak, we had 850 firefighters. We're down to about 250. We're comfortable enough to where the resources we let loose, we didn't really need them. So we're at the point where the alarm where it's out, we can keep this amount of firefighter in a circumference zone that we can have, and we're able to be sure that we're not going to have any problems. We're going to have plenty of resources.

CUEVAS: Well, thank you very much. That was Captain Henry Rodriguez of the L.A. County. Interstate Five, though, was opened up late yesterday at about 8:00 in the afternoon, so hopefully it will be normal rush hour, and then we'll keep monitoring this from here.

Back to you, Daryn.

KAGAN: Anna, give us an kind of the kind of day weatherwise you're expecting in that part of Southern California?

CUEVAS: Well, the temperatures will start increasing at around noon today, so the firefighters are hoping to take advantage of the morning hours to try to contain as much as they can. They're already expecting humidity in the teens, so that can be dangerous. And like he mentioned, it's very unpredictable, but they're very optimistic.

KAGAN: Hena Cuevas, in Southern California, thank you.

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