'Willie Fire' Threatens Montana Estates
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: But first, we want to get started and start talking about the western wildfires. A lot of focus on the state of Montana today and a wildfire that compared to others is relatively small. Let's bring in our Rusty Dornin, joining us with the latest. Rusty, this latest fire that we're talking about, the Willie fire, not even, I don't think, 5,000 acres and yet it's getting a lot of attention. Can you tell us why?</s>RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, I think it's getting a lot of attention because it threatened -- well, 150 homes had to be evacuated and also it was threatening some million-dollar estates. And any time it threatens property like that, they're going to send as much manpower as they can to that area. But that's a difficult fire. It's representative of what a lot of the fires in this area are on. It's steep terrain. There's very erratic fire behavior. It's tough for firefighters to get in there and do a direct attack, so they're sort of confined to at least protecting property in some of those areas. So they're keeping a close eye on that. Now here, a few hours ago, some very weary firefighters tumbled out of their tents. These guys are on two-week shifts, guys and women, on two-week shifts. They work 16-hour days. They're breathing a lot of smoke. They're climbing to very high altitudes, very tough work. And the latest that we're hearing now is that there are no replacements for them. We spoke to a firefighter from Spokane, Washington just a few moments ago who said he was supposed to leave today, and now they're telling him he has to stay indefinitely. So there's going to be more problems as they keep saying that these fires are going to be ongoing until the snows come. They're just completely running out of manpower -- Daryn.</s>KAGAN: What do weather conditions look like there today, speaking of snow?</s>DORNIN: Well, there's supposed to be a cold front coming in tonight or tomorrow. Of course, they're hoping for that. But today it's supposed to be get warmer and the winds are supposed to kick up. So...</s>KAGAN: Bad news.</s>DORNIN: ... at this morning's fire briefing, you know, they were talking about, you know, being careful of torching of trees, about when the fire gets out-of-hand and does what they call "running," which is when the firefighters really have to back off. So they're prepared for some very erratic behavior today, and then hoping that this cold front, when it comes in, is going to bring some rain. But that rain is only supposed to be about a half inch, and that's not nearly enough to do anything to these fires.</s>KAGAN: And Rusty, we heard earlier that access to Yellowstone National Park from that Montana side, from Red Lodge is now blocked so that you can't get that way. But are there other ways to get into Yellowstone?</s>DORNIN: There are several ways to get into Yellowstone, also, from Wyoming and those areas. So there are -- Yellowstone is a huge national park, and there are other ways to get in there.</s>KAGAN: OK, Rusty Dornin in Hamilton, Montana. Thanks for joining us.