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American Morning

Hundreds of Firefighters Remain on Front Lines in Western U.S.

Aired August 28, 2001 - 11:01   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: In California, hundreds of firefighters remain on the frontlines in the Western U.S. today. California is the center of today's battle. A big blaze at Castaic Fire is burning in Los Angeles County. Another fire in Northern California has taken a deadly turn. Two air tankers collided while dumping fire retardant on a brush fire in Mendocino County, killing both pilots.

In the Castaic area in Southern California, firefighters are making progress in their bid to contain those flames.

CNN's Ana Cuevas is following the story in Castaic.

Ana, good morning.

ANA CEUVAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

The brushfire has covered an area of about 1,800 acres. It's about 30 miles north of Los Angeles, and firefighters say they have it contained about 80 percent, and that number might increase later on this morning.

They worked through the evening and in the early hours of the morning to try and take advantage of the high humidity and lower temperatures, which definitely helps them when it comes time to fighting these kinds of brushfires.

The brushfire started yesterday a little bit after noon and spread quickly throughout the area. There was no report of property damage, with the exception of two homes. One traditional stand-alone home, the other one a trailer home. There were also reports of the only injuries reported were to crew members who reported heat exhaustion and were treated on-site.

However, the biggest concern is the weather. One of the latest reports they're getting is temperatures today will probably be between 95-105 degrees, and the relative humidity between 9 and 15 percent, humidity being the key element in this whole brushfire equation.

With us today, we have Rowland Sprewell from the L.A. County Fire Department, who is telling us that they are in the cleanup stages of the operation.

Can you tell us a little bit about this? ROLAND SPREWELL, L.A. COUNTRY FIRE DEPARTMENT: That's right, Hena. We are all but in the cleaning up stages right now, and in a phase what we call demobilization. And that is we're trying to turn loose a few of the crew members that we don't need at this point in time, some of the out of county strike team crews that we were utilizing yesterday as we were tightening up some of the lines out there.

CEUVAS: So it seems like you guys are pretty optimistic that you will be able to have this contained pretty much today?

SPREWELL: Exactly. In fact, this is the best time to take advantage of the weather and so forth, tighten up our lines, complete our dozer lines. We were out there all night with our hand crews and dozer teams, completing the lines that we have around the fire, and we will continue to do that much throughout the morning hours before the temperatures begin to increase again. We're expecting today humidities to go very similar to what they were yesterday, to 9-15 percent humidities. And in this area of heavy brush, that's of particular concern as we saw yesterday.

CEUVAS: So at what stage is the fire right now?

SPREWELL: Well, again, we're getting into the demobilization stage right now, where we start to release some of the crews and sort of wind things down. We will go through a process of what we call "cold trailing.: The hand crews will go there and they will walk the line. They'll turn over roots and so forth to make sure that the fire is not burning deep within and so forth, and continue making continuous water drops with the helicopter and making sure that everything is completely snuffed out.

CEUVAS: Thank you very much. That was Roland Sprewell with L.A. County Fire Department.

And back to you, Daryn.

Anna Ceuvas, in Southern California, thank you.

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