Hundreds Fight Latest California Blaze; Wildfires Rage Across Russia; Debris Delays Effort to Kill Well
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Happening now, wildfires rage near Los Angeles. The flames have already blackened thousands of acres and they could blackout most of southern California if they get closer to those vital power lines. We're going to take you to the scene. And real U.S. passports obtained using fake driver's licenses and bogus birth certificates. There is fresh outrage about the security threat that the State Department can't seem to eliminate. And we watched her grow up from the spotlight and now Chelsea Clinton is about to get married, but can she avoid the spotlight? I will be speaking with a wedding planner to the stars. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Suzanne Malveaux, and you are in THE SITUATION ROOM. Dangerous wildfires are racing across southern California today. Here are the latest developments. There are hundreds of firefighters backed by more than a dozen aircraft. They are fighting a third blaze near Los Angeles. This latest blaze known as the crown fire, and I want you to take a look at these live pictures now. This is blaze threatens to destroy power lines that provide electricity throughout the region. Together, the fires have already scorched more than 25,000 acres. I want to go straight to CNN's Ted Rowlands who is on the ground and it is hot and it is dry and windy weather. It is healthy at all?</s>TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, Suzanne, not at all. The winds have picked up considerably. You are looking at a live picture of a portion of this fire. This is one of the many leading edges of the fire. You will see the smoke behind the homes and obviously, firefighters are doing their best to make sure they don't lose any structures or homes. One home has been lost. At the top of their list is to save these high voltage power lines in the area.</s>RICHARD BARZAGHI, HOMEWONER: This is the first time I have seen anything like this.</s>ROWLANDS: Richard Barzaghi and his family have been watching the flames get closer and closer to the home. Richard says that I are pack and ready to go.</s>BARZAGHI: Those pictures, documents you need, passports and things like that, and just valuable stuff. Pick and choose. I mean, the rest is homeowner's insurance I guess.</s>ROWLANDS: We are up here on the leading edge of the fire, and you can see that it is burning out of control in different areas and the wind is driving this fire. Right now, the bulk of the defense is through the air where they are dropping foscheck (ph), which is a retardant, and water on the different spots of the fire and the key here is not necessarily to protect structures. It is to protect these power lines.</s>DEP. CHIEF MICHAEL BRYANT, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPT.: That is one of our primary priorities today because these lines support power through southern California. So, we are going to have crews. We are going to have a very extensive air show today with fixed wing. We are bringing in the dc-10.</s>ROWLANDS: The fire which authorities believe started from a spark caused by someone changing a tire has destroyed more than 8,000 acres and a handful of buildings, including one home.</s>ROWLANDS: And the wind has been picking up in the last few hours, which of course, is a concern, Suzanne, but one thing that the wind does to help the firefighters if you look out to the hillside. It is all black and the problem or what happened was is that the wind basically shifted earlier and put the fire on top of itself, and it had burned itself out in this area specifically, and you could see that the power lines in this area came through with no problem. These are huge structures. There is concern, but the reality here is that as the day progresses firefighters say that they are confident that these power lines will hold up and if they don't, it could be big problems in Los Angeles tonight. But right at this point, they feel confident that these power lines and the homes in the area are safe for now at least.</s>MALVEAUX: OK. Thank you, Ted. Please keep us posted. Wildfires in Russia have destroyed more than a thousand homes and killed at least 25 people, and forced thousands to evacuate. These fires are the worst ever to hit the European part of Russia which is enduring one of the hottest months on record. It reached 102 degrees yesterday in Moscow, the highest temperature ever recorded there. More than 21,000 fires have been report so far this summer. The Russian military has been called out to help fight the blaze. BP's incoming boss, Bob Dudley, says that the company will do all that it can to absolutely kill the blown out well in the gulf. Now, the hope is that a relief well can provide a permanent seal by late August. In the coming days, there is going to be mud and cement pumped into the broken well in a process that is called static kill. But there has been a slight hitch. I want to turn to our CNN's Chad Myers in Atlanta. Chad, take us, again, to this graphic, and explain to us what is going on and what happened.</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The graphic that you are seeing there, that is part of the bottom kill. That's part of what they are going to do in basically a week or two when they pull this new well out. Basically, they are drilling a brand new well to intersect the bottom of the old well. The old well has failed, and it is basically useless, because the blowout preventer on top is not working. Nothing we can do to stop the oil from pouring out. In fact, inside of the real well, 7,000 psi, pounds per square inch of pressure there. The top kill or the static kill they're talking about is taking mud from the surface, from ships, pumping it into a couple of these small openings, the manifolds, the valves of the blowout preventer and filling this entire thing with mud, heavy mud. It is not dirt. It's a solution, it's a chemical, it's heavy, much heavier than water and it would push all of the oil back down into the reservoir. That is the top kill or the static kill. The bottom kill that they are working on that we thought would be a lot farther along today than it is, because there are rocks in the bottom. I will get to that. They are drilling another well to intersect the bottom to fill the bottom up with mud and concrete cement to kill it from down here as well. What happened today when they went back to put what we called the casing and remember we talked about this yesterday? Basically the steel sleeve that goes into the well, itself, well, when they went to go do that, put that sleeve in today, they found out, and here is the bottom of the new well right here, they found out that the bottom of the new well had rocks in it, had debris in the bottom, because they had not been drilling for many days because of bonnie, tropical storm bonnie, and they pulled everything out, but the sides of the well kind of collapsed in on itself, so that there is stuff down there, and they could not put the sleeve, or that casing in today and they could not cement it. So it is a day and a half's delay. And that day and a half is going to push everything back a day and half. So what was supposed to be a top kill on Saturday or Sunday, does not look like it is until Tuesday. They don't want to go too far. They don't want to do this top kill procedure in case something really breaks, unless this well is much closer than it is right now. That is why they are waiting and why they are on a kind of day and a half delay on where they should have been now. It is a slow down, and not a big hiccup, but a slow down.</s>MALVEAUX: And basically, Chad, they have to remove the debris first, right?</s>MYERS: Yes, they have to get the debris out which will take about 36 hours. They want the casing in; they want this well ready to go down. They still have another 100 feet down to drill before they intersect where they want to be. You have to understand that this is like trying to poke a pin in a nine-inch well down in the bottom 17 or 18,000 feet down. This is not the first try may not hit. You know the first try when they try to get your I.V., sometimes they don't hit your vein, well, they may not just like this, and depends on the nurse.</s>MALVEAUX: Thanks for comparison, Chad. I am a little queasy now. Appreciate it.</s>MYERS: Sure.</s>MALVEAUX: Well, parts of the gulf were reopened to recreational fishing yesterday, and now the Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is restoring commercial fishing in much of the area as well. Commercial fishing will be, again, allowed in some of the waters east of the Mississippi River. The governor calls the reopening, quote, he's saying great news for our fishermen and seafood processors who have been sidelined because of the oil spill. Jack Cafferty is off today, but among the stories that we are working on, fake driver's licenses and birth certificates. They are being used to get real U.S. passports. An undercover probe reveals massive fraud. And security fears close a U.S. consulate in Mexico. We will talk about the raging drug violence and the impact on the immigration debate here with CNN national security adviser Fran Townsend.