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Breaking News

Two Confirmed Dead in Hollywood Fire

Aired August 16, 2001 - 08:55   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.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Two people confirmed dead now in that terrible fire that has been going on since the wee hours of this morning in Hollywood, California.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right -- several people injured, including firefighters who sustained some bad burns and some broken bones when they fell through a burnt-out stairwell.

Right now we want to go to some tape that we just got it from our affiliate KTTV in Los Angeles. They talked to a firefighter talking about the rescue operation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED KTTV REPORTER: Tell me what your part of the operation was, because we had people who needed assistance in getting out.

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: Right. We were one of the first truck companies on scene. And we came from the east here.

So as we came in, we viewed this whole side. We saw -- I saw a gentleman on the third floor hanging out on a ledge. As we stopped, we grabbed ladders. We ran over to the third floor. We were dealing with a lot of power lines as well, trying to get through -- get the ladder through to them.

We got the ladder to the gentleman, pulled him down off the third floor. As we were pulling him down, on the fourth floor was lady with her two children. She was holding them in the window on the fourth floor. We got them down.

We took the ladder and we put it at about at 85 degrees, which is lot steeper than we normally climb a ladder. We had two guys hold it. And a couple of us went up the ladder. We started taking the children down. We took the one child, gave it to our rescue ambulance. We took another one and set her down on a mattress that was laying over here on the sidewalk.

As I was going up the ladder to rescue the mom with another firefighter, the mom couldn't hang on and jumped out.

UNIDENTIFIED KTTV REPORTER: So it wasn't a case of her...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCEDWARDS: Once again, two people now confirmed dead -- a second person found inside by fire officials.

LIN: We're of course covering this story throughout the morning.

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