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Huge Fire Burning Near Helicopters at Kandahar Airport

Aired February 14, 2002 - 11:02   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And now we use a night scope camera to take you to Kandahar, Afghanistan where a fire is burning outside the Kandahar Airport. It's a huge fire, burning near three U.S. transport helicopters.

Our Marty Savidge is on the phone now, from Kandahar, with the latest. Marty, what are we looking at?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, what you're looking at is a view out to the perimeter. The perimeter is actually extremely dark. No runway lights. You're looking towards what would be the runway, if it was illuminate. It is not. It has been dark ever since -- well, about 7:34 tonight, which was almost 24 hours to the minute that they had the firefight of last night.

Well, this night we didn't have gunfire, at least none that we could see. But what did draw us out here were illumination flares. You could hear the pop of them being launched into the air. Then we came to the front the tarmac here to look out at to the perimeter, which is facing to the west and helicopters parked in between the runway and the taxiway. And you could see the golden glow that they illuminated, and things got very tense.

Obviously remembering what happened last night. When illumination flares are launched, it usually means that they have some reason to believe that there could be somebody hostile out there, and they want to have a better look. One of those flares -- there were three in all....

KAGAN: Marty, I'm going go ahead -- I'm sorry, I have to go ahead. Martin, I'm sorry, I have to go ahead and interrupt you.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)

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