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American Morning

California Wildfire Forces Residents to Evacuate

Aired August 29, 2001 - 10:01   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: Let's get started with the fight in the western U.S. against those wildfires.

A news conference was scheduled this hour to provide an update on the tense situation in Weaverville, California. That is a former mining town about 200 miles north of San Francisco. More than 1,000 people, nearly half of the town's residents, were chased from their homes last night. The swift-moving fire has devoured as many as 20 homes and burned some 1,600 acres.

For the latest, we are joined on the phone by Jason Martin, he's with the California Department of Forestry. Jason, good morning.

JASON MARTIN, CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF FORESTRY: Good morning.

KAGAN: Can you give us the latest of the status of the folks and the fire in Weaverville?

MARTIN: Yes, we have approximately -- right now we're looking at 1948 acres. There is 15 percent containment. All of the evacuations and road closures are all still in effect. We do have the -- we have nine homes and three RVs have been destroyed. But due to the action and the work of the firefighters, they've saved approximately 200 structures.

So, winds have decreased at this point. The fire has laid down overnight. And so we are just hoping that the winds stay calm, and now that the sun's up, the air tankers and helicopters will be able to jump right on it.

KAGAN: Jason, tell us a little bit more about Weaverville, about what makes up the town, and also the terrain that surrounds it.

MARTIN: It's a historic town. I believe there's a logging company set up there. The terrain is steep, and that has been hampering the efforts of the firefighters. But they have been focusing a lot of their efforts on saving structures.

So we're just hoping that the winds stay down.

KAGAN: Did this one come up very quickly and spread pretty quickly?

MARTIN: It sure did. It sure did. The winds were roughly 30 miles per hour, and it fueled the fire big. It moved -- it went from 300 acres to over 1,000 acres in just a short amount of time.

KAGAN: Wow. I imagine you are dealing with a lot of the same conditions that we've been hearing about all over the west in recent weeks; The dryness, and the lack of humidity, and the lack of rain?

MARTIN: Yes, definitely. It's been really dry here, and it was over 100 degrees yesterday. And we're basically expecting the same today. Low humidity. It would be nice to have one of those freak tropical rainstorms, but that might be asking a bit much.

KAGAN: Well, we'll put the order in with Chad Myers in our weather department, but in the meantime we wish you well in fighting those flames and getting people back to homes, and trying to save as many homes as possible.

Jason Martin with the California Department of Forestry. Thanks for joining us.

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