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CNN Live Sunday
Fires spread to four counties in California
Aired October 26, 2003 - 18:28 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime, in southern California, a string of unrelenting wild fires is racing across the passengered landscape leaving a charred trail of devastation. Fire officials say tens of thousands of homes could go up in smoke.
Right now, we're going to bring you live pictures of Malibu and Frank Buckley who has the latest from the L.A. suburb of Claremont -- Frank?
FRANK BUCKLEY: Hi there, Carol. Difficult to really keep track of how many fires are burning at one particular time. Or which fire we're looking at from moment to moment because they're burning in so many different communities. You have Los Angeles County, Ventura County, San Bernardino County and San Diego County. So, you've got firing burning in all of these places at once. As you say, thousands of people evacuated. In fact, some 12,000 homes were evacuated at one point. So, we're still trying to track these fire and these different communities at once.
LIN: Frank, what's actually starting these fires?
BUCKLEY: Well, it's difficult to know for sure. Arson is suspected in at least a couple of the fires. Certainly, with given these conditions, it's an invitation for fire to take place. With this kind of low humidity it's almost difficult to describe the people on the east coast how warm and dry it is right now given the time of the year it is. That kind of humidity.
And even though you don't see it here where I am right now, these Santa Ana wind conditions invite fires to jump from spot to spot. A fire that firefighters could normally knock down in just a few minutes if it was confined to a few acres in the kinds of winds that we experience during a Santa Ana condition, they blow the embers all over the place and they start spots in a number of different locations. So that really is a major contributing factor to these fires.
LIN: Right. We are showing live pictures from our affiliate KGTV, in San Diego, again a wall of flames cresting a ridge of a hill and coming over. In that particular case, the San Diego fires, one suspect there is a hunter who apparently fired his rifle into the air as a warning signal and somehow you talk about these dry conditions, somehow that sparked one of the fires.
BUCKLEY: And it's not the first time that we've heard fires starting in that way not particularly in this series of fires but it's not the first time that that has caused a fire. It really gives you a sense of how dry the brush is and how little it takes in these conditions to start a fire.
LIN: You bet. All right it's going to take a break in the weather at this rate because these fires now have a life of their own it certainly seems, Frank. Thanks so much for joining us today from Claremont continuing live coverage throughout the night folks so please stay tuned to CNN.
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 - 18:28 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime, in southern California, a string of unrelenting wild fires is racing across the passengered landscape leaving a charred trail of devastation. Fire officials say tens of thousands of homes could go up in smoke.
Right now, we're going to bring you live pictures of Malibu and Frank Buckley who has the latest from the L.A. suburb of Claremont -- Frank?
FRANK BUCKLEY: Hi there, Carol. Difficult to really keep track of how many fires are burning at one particular time. Or which fire we're looking at from moment to moment because they're burning in so many different communities. You have Los Angeles County, Ventura County, San Bernardino County and San Diego County. So, you've got firing burning in all of these places at once. As you say, thousands of people evacuated. In fact, some 12,000 homes were evacuated at one point. So, we're still trying to track these fire and these different communities at once.
LIN: Frank, what's actually starting these fires?
BUCKLEY: Well, it's difficult to know for sure. Arson is suspected in at least a couple of the fires. Certainly, with given these conditions, it's an invitation for fire to take place. With this kind of low humidity it's almost difficult to describe the people on the east coast how warm and dry it is right now given the time of the year it is. That kind of humidity.
And even though you don't see it here where I am right now, these Santa Ana wind conditions invite fires to jump from spot to spot. A fire that firefighters could normally knock down in just a few minutes if it was confined to a few acres in the kinds of winds that we experience during a Santa Ana condition, they blow the embers all over the place and they start spots in a number of different locations. So that really is a major contributing factor to these fires.
LIN: Right. We are showing live pictures from our affiliate KGTV, in San Diego, again a wall of flames cresting a ridge of a hill and coming over. In that particular case, the San Diego fires, one suspect there is a hunter who apparently fired his rifle into the air as a warning signal and somehow you talk about these dry conditions, somehow that sparked one of the fires.
BUCKLEY: And it's not the first time that we've heard fires starting in that way not particularly in this series of fires but it's not the first time that that has caused a fire. It really gives you a sense of how dry the brush is and how little it takes in these conditions to start a fire.
LIN: You bet. All right it's going to take a break in the weather at this rate because these fires now have a life of their own it certainly seems, Frank. Thanks so much for joining us today from Claremont continuing live coverage throughout the night folks so please stay tuned to CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
