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American Morning
L.A. County Fire Maybe Due to Arson
Aired August 28, 2001 - 10:09 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: The latest on the western wildfires. Authorities have not yet released the names of the two pilots killed yesterday while they were trying to snuff out a wildfire in northern California. Their air tankers collided while they were dumping fire retardant.
In southern California, crews are nearing containment of a spectacular blaze in Los Angeles County. For the latest on that, let's turn now to CNN's Hena Cuevas. She's in Castaic, California, this morning. Hena?
HENA CUEVAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon. The brush fire covered an area of 1800 acres, and is about 80 percent contained. Firefighters have worked through the night and the early hours this morning to take advantage of the low temperatures and the low -- and the high humidity, which is helping in the containment of the fire.
The brush fire started yesterday at around noon, and spread quickly throughout the area, even prompting officials to close down one of the major interstates here in Los Angeles, interstate 5, which connects Sacramento to San Diego.
There was property damage. There was one home that was burnt down, and a trailer home. But so far no injuries have been reported, with the exception of two crew members who reported heat exhaustion and were treated right on the site and were later released.
Firefighters are optimistic, though, that they'll have this fire 100 percent contained by 6:00 this afternoon. It's all going to depend on the weather conditions. They're saying a critical time is about 10:00 this morning, which is just about three hours away pacific time. Because that is when temperatures will begin to rise, and fires of this nature are very unpredictable.
Joining us now is Dennis Cross from the L.A. County Fire Department. Tell us a little bit about the cause of the fire.
Do you guys have any idea what caused this fire?
DENNIS CROSS, L.A. COUNTY FIRE DEPT.: The cause is under investigation right now. We've had numerous citizens that were in the area, reported an individual near where the fire appeared to be started. Although that could be sheer coincidence, we always treat fires as suspicious in nature until proven otherwise. We will assist the local law enforcement agency in trying to determine a cause in this fire.
CUEVAS: I understand there were actually two separate fires. What is the status of each one of those?
CROSS: Yes, there were. This fire started, and then shortly thereafter a fire started about a mile away to the south of it. Totally unrelated, but because of the amount of personnel resources we had on the fire, we were able to quickly knock that down.
As you can hear in the background, aircraft are flying and they will continue flying all morning, trying to hit the hot spots and prevent those from getting away from us.
CUEVAS: All right. Well, thank you very much. That was Dennis Cross with the L.A. County Police Department. They will continue with their efforts to try and get this fire contained.
Like I mentioned before, they're hoping to have it completely contained by 6:00 this afternoon. Leon.
HARRIS: All right, good deal, Hena. Thank you very much. Hena Cuevas reporting live for us this morning from Castaic, California.
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