Return to Transcripts main page
CNN 10
Raging wildfires have forced more than 300,000 people out of their homes in California
Aired November 14, 2018 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Raging wildfires have forced more than 300,000 people out of their homes in California, and that`s our first story this
Wednesday on CNN 10. Thank you for watching, I`m Carl Azuz. A woman from the town of Paradise, which is in Northern California, thought her life was
over when her car was surrounded by flames. She called her husband, who told her to get out and run; she did, feeling around through the ash until
she reached a fire engine. Firefighters pulled her inside and bulldozer came through and cleared a path for them to escape.
This is one of the harrowing stories aboutthe campfire, the name of the blaze in northern California. It is now the deadliest wildfire in the
state`s recorded history. It has killed 42 people and scorched 125,000 acres -- that`s bigger than the size of Atlanta, Georgia -- 6,500 homes and
260 commercial buildings have been lost to the campfire. Councilmember from the town of Paradise told the San Francisco Chronicle that 95 percent
of its town is gone and the campfire continues to burn.
There are two other major fires still going in the state, the hill fire in southern California, has burned more than 4,500 acres. But as of last
night, it was mostly contained, meaning surrounded and prevented from spreading. That isn`t the case with the Woolsey fire. It`s also in
southern California and was only 35 percent contained yesterday. It has burned more than 96,000 acres and destroyed at least 435 buildings, and
hurricane force gusts of wind of at least 74 miles per hour or higher were whipping through the canyons. That only helps wildfires travel faster.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, REPORTER: We`re on the outskirts of the Woolsey fire right now. You can see we`re on the other side of the 101 freeway, it`s already
jumped, and this is what officials fear. You feel this wind that`s been coming through? It`s contributed a lot to these flames spreading, and you
can see how low the visibility is here right now. This place is actually too unsafe for us to be right now, so we`re going to try and get to a safer
location. But you see this wind coming through.
Again, this is a fire that went from 2,000 acres to 8,000 in just a matter hours from Thursday night into Friday; and crews are just trying to
maintain any sort of control on it. You hear sirens going, they`re attacking this from the ground and from the air as well. On the other side
of that, we have one fire, and then on this side, we have one fire.
You can see these crews here, they`ve been caravanning out in almost zero visibility, trying to get a handle again, on these very fast moving flames.
And again, it highlights a little bit of what they`re up against, when you talk about all of these fires. For right now though, we`re going to go try
and get to a safe location. I`m Omar Jimenez, reporting along the 101 freeway here in southern California. I`ll send it back to you.
AZUZ: Newly released images from satellites that look down on North Korea, have identified more than 12 missile operating bases that the communist
country headed to clear. But the significance of this is up for debate. On one hand, American intelligence agencies have known about these sites
for a long time. On another, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested in a news conference last week that North Korea had stopped working on its
missile program.
He and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made history over the summer, they became the first sitting leaders of the U.S. and North Korea to meet face
to face. But there`s been a slowdown in negotiations between the two countries, and though North Korea says it`s taken some steps to get rid of
its nuclear weapons, the main concern of the United States, some experts say the moves that the communist country has made are cosmetic and
reversible.
Still, others say that North Korea never promised to get rid of its missile program, and that it may need the bases and the satellite pictures for self
defense. So do these missile bases indicate that North Korea will find a way to remain powerfully armed no matter what happens with the U.S., or are
they insignificant when compared to the possibility that North Korea could eventually give up its nuclear weapons?
There`s disagreement over this. And it`s another example of how analyzing the country, what its intentions are, what problems or successes it has,
has been so difficult. North Korea is secretive, its government controls and limits the media, even the foreign journalists who are allowed in are
closely watched by the authoritarian dictatorship.
UNKNOWN: North Korea has been like this black hole.
UNKNOWN: That`s what it looks like, an island without electricity in one of the brightest parts of the world.
UNKNOWN: North Korea is probably the hardest intelligence target of all.
UNKNOWN: They are putting together a program to keep intelligence assets focused on North Korea.
UNKNOWN: As far as information is concerned, they want to keep it hermetically sealed.
UNKNOWN: It`s just basically catalog of the American imperialists` transgressions on the Korean peninsula over the years; it`s quite an
amazing anti-American document. Journalists are often adequately trained to do diplomacy or espionage or intelligence, although sometimes it feels
like what we do is very similar.
The research, building contexts and sources, but we`re not trained for it. I`ve been travelling there for 10 years, I also was the first American so
many North Koreans met, so I felt the burden of representing my country. Of course, I don`t look like a typical American, according to their
propaganda, that was something that helped me because I didn`t look like their stereotypes and their caricatures. I mean, we think that we have
caricatures of North Korea, well they of caricatures of Americans as well, and I didn`t look like it.
But that also was an opportunity for me to explain that Americans do include people of Korean ancestry, and people of all kinds of ancestries.
So it was interesting what used in terms of the diversity of America to try to win the North Koreans over. I became the first America journalist who
was allowed to become one of the local press corps, so I felt like I had to play the role of a diplomat and I had to do a lot of negotiations. I would
say that 90 percent of my time was spent negotiating. It is the most challenging assignment for a journalist. While we were not under fire, in
terms of bombs, we were under surveillance.
That is a different kind of warfare, it is psychological. One of the things I like to do when I go to North Korea is to pick up their
propaganda, and primarily propaganda in Korean, to see how it`s being conveyed to the North Koreans. These are the type of books most foreign
journalists wouldn`t know to bring back, because they`re in Korean, but it helps me to understand how they`re using the Pueblo for their propaganda.
UNKNOWN: The situation of the captured ship, USS Pueblo, as brave as it was, must be handled with restraint.
UNKNOWN: January of 1968, the U.S. military had sent a spy ship -- a very small reconfigured ship to the waters off North Korea`s east coast to see
what kind of naval activity North Korea was up to and also to see what kind of activity this Soviet Union was up to in those waters. The crew of 83 --
well, 82, because one of them did die in the fight -- they were in North Korean captivity for 11 while these negotiations for their release dragged
on; 11 months that they say, was just pure literal torture, where they were beaten, kept in extremely harsh conditions.
I`m sure that these crewmembers went through extended periods of PTSD, for them to come back to a country that wasn`t interested in their ordeal over
these years, must have been emotionally exhausting as well.
The ship itself serves as a war trophy, but you realize everything in there is like a totem to anti-Americanism. Everything has been kept and
preserved. You cannot help as an American but just get chills up your spine.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
AZUZ: Ten second trivia. Which of these places is located in the Irish Sea? The Bay of Biscay, Aran Islands, Inner Hebrides, or Isle of Man? The
only one of these places located directly between England and Ireland is the Isle of Man.
And our last story takes you to the Isle to Man, where you might think this is a grand castle that`s overlooked the sea for centuries. Not only
is it new, but its 15 inches tall. It`s one of a series of miniature buildings popping up across the island, the work of a Swedish art group
called Anonymouse MMX. They were apparently inspired by fairy tales of the island and they wanted their buildings to look like they`d always been
there.
It may look like a tiny house, but it`s more like a dolly house, fit to fit a mini-mouse who may find it enor-mouse. For us, to just get through the
door and scamper on the tiny floor, you`re right on if you`re sensing that it takes some real condensing. It`s as small as it`s magical, as mini as
it`s mighty. Because it`s as di-mini-tive as it is do-mini-utive, my mind must be like sieve. What rhymes with do-mini-utive? I`m Carl Azuz, and
I`m out.
END
