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CNN Live Sunday
Battle Against Wildfires East of L.A. Continues
Aired October 26, 2003 - 10:06 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.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: The battle goes on today against several dangerous wildfires east of Los Angeles. The flames, whipped by high winds, have now destroyed at least 200 homes. They're threatening thousands more. Right now, at least two deaths are linked to the fires.
Laverne is one of the areas under siege now. And CNN's Miguel Marquez is joining us from there this morning. Miguel, hello once again.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi. Laverne isn't quite there yet, but what we're trying to do is get ahead of this fire, and that's proving difficult because it is moving so fast. We were in Claremont just a short time ago, just the next community over. Now we're one community west of their, closer to Los Angeles.
You can see the smoke starting to come toward us with the blue sky behind us as well. The 200 homes that you spoke about were in Waterman Canyon. But I can tell you, in Claremont, California, 50 homes were destroyed here overnight. We have some video from one of our affiliates, KABC, that is shooting live pictures now.
Homes were going up all over town in Claremont. People streamed out of their homes or were gotten out of bed by police. They are now pretty much just hanging out by the sides of the roads south of a big freeway here, where they can just sort of watch their neighborhoods, watch the fire as it sort of consumes homes and parts of the brush in the national forest here. But that's not the only fire going on here.
Two hundred homes went up east of here near San Bernardino or in San Bernardino near the Waterman Canyon area. That fire is called the old fire.
There's another fire to tell you about, about 100 miles northwest of here in Simi Valley. That fire is called the verdel (ph) fire. Apparently, that has eaten up thousands of acres as well.
One hopeful sign that we saw just a short time ago, even though there are winds here, we saw two tankers, two airplane fixed wing tankers fly overhead. Apparently, they had just dropped their load and were on their way to get more water. This is a good sign because yesterday we didn't see fixed wing aircraft or helicopters flying at all able to get on this fire. And it appears that firefighters are now trying to make their stand in this area to keep it from moving into yet another community along the forest line here. Give you an idea just how fast this fire is moving. It was in the San Bernardino National Forest yesterday, late last night. Now it's in the Angeles National Forest. In San Bernardino County last night. Now it's in Los Angeles County and creeping towards Los Angeles.
And if I can just show you this sunrise in California. It would tell you that California is the sunshine state. This is California at 7:08 a.m. This is the sort of sun that people have been dealing with here for the last few days.
Injuries have been light so far, although two deaths, stress related deaths, were reported yesterday in the Waterman Canyon area near San Bernardino. Firefighters are also expecting heavy winds today in the 30 to 50 mile an hour range -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Miguel Marquez. Certainly a hazy sunshine indeed that they have been seeing more many days. We appreciate it so much, Miguel Marquez.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 26, 2003 - 10:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: The battle goes on today against several dangerous wildfires east of Los Angeles. The flames, whipped by high winds, have now destroyed at least 200 homes. They're threatening thousands more. Right now, at least two deaths are linked to the fires.
Laverne is one of the areas under siege now. And CNN's Miguel Marquez is joining us from there this morning. Miguel, hello once again.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi. Laverne isn't quite there yet, but what we're trying to do is get ahead of this fire, and that's proving difficult because it is moving so fast. We were in Claremont just a short time ago, just the next community over. Now we're one community west of their, closer to Los Angeles.
You can see the smoke starting to come toward us with the blue sky behind us as well. The 200 homes that you spoke about were in Waterman Canyon. But I can tell you, in Claremont, California, 50 homes were destroyed here overnight. We have some video from one of our affiliates, KABC, that is shooting live pictures now.
Homes were going up all over town in Claremont. People streamed out of their homes or were gotten out of bed by police. They are now pretty much just hanging out by the sides of the roads south of a big freeway here, where they can just sort of watch their neighborhoods, watch the fire as it sort of consumes homes and parts of the brush in the national forest here. But that's not the only fire going on here.
Two hundred homes went up east of here near San Bernardino or in San Bernardino near the Waterman Canyon area. That fire is called the old fire.
There's another fire to tell you about, about 100 miles northwest of here in Simi Valley. That fire is called the verdel (ph) fire. Apparently, that has eaten up thousands of acres as well.
One hopeful sign that we saw just a short time ago, even though there are winds here, we saw two tankers, two airplane fixed wing tankers fly overhead. Apparently, they had just dropped their load and were on their way to get more water. This is a good sign because yesterday we didn't see fixed wing aircraft or helicopters flying at all able to get on this fire. And it appears that firefighters are now trying to make their stand in this area to keep it from moving into yet another community along the forest line here. Give you an idea just how fast this fire is moving. It was in the San Bernardino National Forest yesterday, late last night. Now it's in the Angeles National Forest. In San Bernardino County last night. Now it's in Los Angeles County and creeping towards Los Angeles.
And if I can just show you this sunrise in California. It would tell you that California is the sunshine state. This is California at 7:08 a.m. This is the sort of sun that people have been dealing with here for the last few days.
Injuries have been light so far, although two deaths, stress related deaths, were reported yesterday in the Waterman Canyon area near San Bernardino. Firefighters are also expecting heavy winds today in the 30 to 50 mile an hour range -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Miguel Marquez. Certainly a hazy sunshine indeed that they have been seeing more many days. We appreciate it so much, Miguel Marquez.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
