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CNN Sunday Morning

Arizona Wildfires Worsen

Aired June 23, 2002 - 08:01   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, let's get back to our top story -- menacing wildfires in the Western U.S. We heard first, we head first, I should say, to eastern Arizona, where it's touch and go in the battle against two blazes that have now merged.

CNN's Charles Molineaux is monitoring the situation from Show Low -- good morning, Charles.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Miles.

It's not that unusual to see things pretty quiet at this hour on a Sunday in Show Low, but this is one authentic Arizona ghost town today. About 25,000 people have been evacuated from the path of the Chediski and Rodeo fires. If you take a look out on the horizon, you can already see the smoke plumes coming up. Actually, just before dawn, we saw an orange glow on the western horizon. That's pretty unusual for a fire to be that active overnight.

And the fire was very active as it burned at sunset, as people tried to clear out of the area. There were plumes of burning gas some 500 feet high that combined with the sunset and smoke that went up for thousands upon thousands of feet.

Jim Paxon with the Forest Service briefed reporters last night. There was an audible gasp as he got a marker and showed the new boundaries of these fires on the map.

What happened yesterday? Did everything just turn against you?

JIM PAXON, U.S. FOREST SERVICE: This fire entirely blew up. Both fires went crazy, may have even burned together. We won't know that until later today.

MOLINEAUX: What about total distance? You've been talking about possibly 300,000 acres burning from these fires if they were to combine. What are we looking at at this point?

PAXON: We think we're there and we think we are just about to 300,000 acres. We flew infrared last night and it's so huge that the interpretation of the infrared is taking a long time. We should have updated acreage and updated boundaries early this morning.

MOLINEAUX: Now, we've got a lot of people out of the town of Show Low right now, as well as towns in the surrounding area. What are you talking about in terms of the fire actually moving right over this area where we are now?

PAXON: Our fire behavior analyst has projected that we will have fire in Show Low middle of the day today. By tomorrow, the fire may be all the way down to the airport in Show Low.

MOLINEAUX: Now, so you're talking about your firefighters actually, instead of going to forest fires, fighting house fires?

PAXON: That's right. We'll be working with the local fire department and Chief Owens and we'll actually be supporting them in the town of Show Low with our wild end firefighters trying to save as many homes as we can.

MOLINEAUX: How do you do that in a city where in the city of Show Low you've got streets, you've got yards, you've got houses? It must be different from the wilderness.

PAXON: Oh, very much. The fire behavior is different, too. A lot of these fires will be spotting induced, as embers hit on houses, wood piles and flammable areas around homes. What we'll do is we'll fight the wild end side and the chief and his fire department will fight the structure side.

MOLINEAUX: So we're going to see slurry drops in the middle of the city?

PAXON: Absolutely.

MOLINEAUX: OK, thank you very much.

PAXON: You bet.

MOLINEAUX: Jim Paxon with the Forest Service.

Another, a third type one federal level incident management team is due to arrive on the scene some time today. And so, for that matter, is Governor Jane Hull, who is due here around 9:00 local time this morning on the scene of a fire that a lot of folks at the Forest Service have for days already been calling a monster -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, CNN's Charles Molineaux. We appreciate that. Thank you for that report.

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