MORE FLEE NEW MEXICO FIRE http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,192936-412,00.shtml

Weather Service Says It Warned Park Service Against Controlled Burn President Authorizes FEMA Assistance Residents Evacuated; Los Alamos Homes Burn

LOS ALAMOS, N.M and WASHINGTON

AP (CBS) Before the fire that ravaged Los Alamos was started last week, the National Park Service was sent a forecast of higher winds, higher temperatures, reduced humidity and maximum conditions for a spreading fire just west of the town.

The Park Service started its fire last Thursday at Bandelier National Monument. Last Friday, the fire burned outside the 900-acre perimeter that had been designated for the fire.

A firestorm swept through the abandoned streets of Los Alamos Thursday, while frustrated firefighters ran short of water and were forced to retreat. New Mexico Rep. Tom Udall reported that federal officials had told him him 300-400 homes had been damaged in Los Alamos.

At least 18,000 people were evacuated from Los Alamos, including 7,000 in suburban White Rock Thusday morning. With the federal government at least partly to blame, the president is offering his sympathies to those in New Mexico who have lost their homes to the fires, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

In an exchange with reporters, he said he does not yet know the facts about federal liability - even though it's acknowledged the fires began with a controlled burn by the National Park Service.

"The rule here ought to be the 'do-right' rule," he said. "Whatever the right thing to do is is exactly what should be done."

The president said that when it comes to rebuilding, he will bend over backwards to do the right thing for those who suffered losses.

"Right now we should be focusing on doing everything we can to minimize the damage of the fire and protect the lab assets, deal with the human problem," Mr. Clinton said.

The Santa Fe chapter of the Red Cross has about 50 people in a shelter in that city, and another 60 in shelters in Pojaque.

"Everybody is kind of quiet," acting director Melanie Darling said. "They are very tired."

Darling says a major challenge is taking care of pets.

"If people have animals we're trying to hook them up with people in the area willing to board their animals while people are in the shelters," she told CBS Radio News.

A research building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory was singed but did not burn. Explosives and radioactive material were protected in fireproof facilities, lab officials said.

"We can assure the country and New Mexico that our nuclear materials are safe," said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico congressman.

On Monday, park Superintendent Roy Weaver acknowledged his responsibility for the blaze, saying he believed that conditions were optimal for a prescribed burn. After the fire erupted into Los Alamos neighborhoods on Wednesday, Weaver told CNN he never saw the National Weather Service forecast.

The Associated Press, which couldn't reach Weaver for comment, obtained a copy of the special weather forecast Wednesday.

"This is the worst of circumstance, I mean, you couldn't script anything worse," Gov. Gary Johnson told CBS News. "The numbers that are floating around here are that a lot of Los Alamos is going to be lost to this."

The raging wild fires led President Clinton Wednesday to declare Los Alamos a disaster area, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Earlier, strong winds drove the week-old fire into Los Alamos Canyon, forcing the evacuation of all 11,500 residents from a nearby town, and there were reports of structures in the town burning.

State Forestry Division spokeswoman Terri Wildermuth said she didn't know how many homes are burning or where they are located.

As officials moved in to help the residents get out, panic set in, and a thick blanket of smoke and ash wrapped itself around the town, reports CBS News Correspondent Maureen Maher.

"I'm scared to death," said one evacuating resident.

National Weather Service supervisory meteorologist Charlie Liles said his staff in Albuquerque faxed the 12:20 p.m. forecast to the park before the fire was started last Thursday. Liles said his office had received a request for it from Bandelier at 11:35 a.m. that day.

The forecast told park officials there was a maximum potential for fire growth, that winds were about to increase, temperatures were about to rise and that the potential for the usual increase in nighttime humidity was diminished - in short, a blueprint for a spreading fire.

"We provide the weather forecasts. We're not the fire behavior specialists here," Liles said Wednesday.

The special Bandelier forecast was headlined: "6 HAINES INDEX THROUGH FRIDAY WITH POOR NIGHTTIME RH RECOVERY..."

RH is relative humidity.

The Haines Index is a "measure of stability of atmosphere and potential for fire growth," Liles said. "It ranges from zero to six."

"Six is the maximum, which means a potential for fire growth is high," he said.

Liles said his office figured park officials were planning a prescribed burn.

"We had been coordinating with them for several days, discussing the situation," Liles said.

While the Weather Service advises the public of fire danger in more general forecasts, it does not spell out "fire danger" in a forecast for a special customer like the Park Service, Liles said, although he said "if the customer asked for it, I think we might be more proactive" about giving such signals.

"It's really the fire behavior specialist out there who should be in the best position [to make the call]," Liles said.

U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the controlled burn would be the focus of post-fire questions.

"Obviously, this [May 4] weather report raises serious questions about how decisions were made to go ahead with the controlled burn," Bingaman said by phone from Washington, D.C. "I think the fact the Forest Service had decided not to proceed with any controlled burns that Friday also reinforces questions that we need to be asking once all of this crisis is behind us."

Tom Zimmerman, a National Park Service fire science and ecology program leader at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, said the Bandelier fire "experienced some severe wind events that were not totally forecasted" and "that was the variable that killed us on this one."

"We're pretty set that our prescribed fire procedures are sound," Zimmerman said. "We've been dealing with prescribed fire for over 20 years. We've had two federal fire policy reviews since 1988, and these have confirmed it's a sound complement to the fire management program."

Domenici said: "Any fire of this magnitude that moves from a place like Bandelier as close to Los Alamos and has this kind of a burn, we have to ask: How did all this happen?"

"I am not passing judgment," he said, "but I am led to believe that there was less than concurrence on the part of experts that this controlled fire should have been started at all."

However, he commended the firefighting and evacuation effort, which he said went very well.

"None of this would be happening if it weren't for a controlled burn that's now obviously way out of control," the governor told CBS Radio News.

Evacuees had mixed feelings.

John Brackbill, 27, expressed frustration over the controlled burn.

"I think this is a lesson in what not to do," he said. "The thing that got me is that they expected the winds to be bad, but they went ahead with the burn anyway."

Domenici said the federal government will do whatever it can to defeat the fire and ease the plight of its victims.

Federal Emergency Management Agency director James Lee Witt planned to tour the fire zone Thursday with Bingaman and Domenici.

Domenici said of Witt: "He has informed me and others that whatever has to be done is being done, whatever is needed is being provided. When we need to do more, we will do it."

"In the meantime we have to hope and pray that nature changes its course and the winds subside."

He said if winds continue unabated, it might be four days before the fire can be controlled.

"They're saying the winds tomorrow will be worse," Domenici said.

CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.