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Saturday Morning News

Weather as a Weapon: Firefighters Put Rain to Their Advantage

Aired September 2, 2000 - 9:09 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Weather conditions out West are tipping in favor of the firefighters as rain and cooler temperatures enter the picture. But 68 fires are still burning, most in the northern Rockies.

CNN's Rusty Dornin has the latest now from Hamilton, Montana.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For weeks, fire crews have been fighting fire with fire. After days of dry, windy weather, a light morning rain, and with the change in weather, a change in the plan of attack.

RUSSELL HARRIS, NORTH CAROLINA FIREFIGHTER: It's already changed our strategy. Now we got higher humidity, we got less fire activity, and we're going to go in, and we're going to pound it hard.

DORNIN: So they blasted the hot spots that burned the day before, and with more rain forecast all weekend, firefighters will be able to hit places they couldn't get near earlier.

HARRIS: You don't have crowning and torching in the trees. You don't have near as much ground fire. You can see more of your hot spots. You can just go in deeper into the fire. You can do more probing, more digging.

DORNIN: Firefighters love rain, a drenching one. Light showers can actually hinder overall containment efforts.

CONNIE STILES, NORTH CAROLINA FIREFIGHTER: With precipitation, of course, that would make it impossible to do any burning out to secure the line.

DORNIN: Burning out can make a clean break around structures and roads to stop the advance of another fire. If they try to burn out when it's raining, it leaves islands of green that can burn later.

HARRIS: It creates a mop-up nightmare where the crews just have to lay in there day after day. You don't get a clean burn. You can get retorts and crowning.

DORNIN: This ridge on the Skalkaho fire raged unabated Thursday. With higher humidity and a little rain Friday, things were quite a bit calmer. But the crews know the effects of light rain can dissipate very quickly here.

DONALD LITTLE, NORTH CAROLINA FIREFIGHTER: And when the rain hits, it is like it just soaks it up real quick, and it really don't do nothing to the ground, not really. They need a lot of rain, a lot of rain.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: A lot of rain hasn't happened yet, although what you're looking at now is a shot of the Bitterroot Valley. There was some rain overnight and some lightning storms. However, it looks like they haven't started any other -- we haven't heard that they've started any other fires. But more rain is expected today through Monday.

Now, we're here at the Ravelli Fairgrounds on the Skalkaho fire camp, where firefighters are getting ready right now to go back out on the lines. Now, the sad part of all this, this is Labor Day, and instead of being filled with fire trucks, it should be filled with kids and animals and what happens during a county fair.

But Montana has been hit hard by these fires. The governor says that they've been losing $3 million a day as a result of this. Of course, President Clinton did declare Montana a disaster area, which could get some federal funds for residents hit hard here -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Rusty Dornin, thanks for the update.

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