Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, & Pigeon Forge

jkjenn

It's my busy time of year for work, but I wanted to pop in to make sure folks knew about the Smoky Mountains situation.

In case you have missed it, the Smoky Mountains have been inundated with wildfires, but in particular, the west side of the National Park, Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge areas were hit, very badly last night when winds drove a strong line of storms towards the communities. It appears that several hundred homes and businesses were destroyed. As of this evening 3 were known to be dead from the firestorm. This firestorm came out of nowhere and people had no time to escape. If you are familiar with the explosive Waldo Canyon fire that took off during a wind event on June 26, 2012, this fire seemed to move even faster. The cause of this and other fires is believed to be arson. They are in for another windy night tonight.

If you have plans to camp in the area, please make sure that call ahead to confirm that your campground was not affected.

The fire originated in the Chimney Tops area. More than 2 dozen backcountry hikers have been rescued from the park. The park is currently without power and I have not seen anything giving an update on park facilities. I saw an image that showed that the Welcome Center sign for Gatlinburg and the National Park had been burned half-way. Dollywood and DreamMore are intact, but at least a dozen of the Dollywood cabins were lost.

There is no Inciweb listing for this event or designated Twitter hashtag, so calling ahead is probably the best route, to go. The National Park has limited information on their website and social media site, at this time.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park receives more visitors, annually, than any other U.S. National Park. It will be decades before the forest recovers. I lived close to the park, in Knoxville, for a couple of years and enjoyed hiking, fishing, and camping there. It is really heartbreaking for me to watch unfold.

Fatman1966

Real sad. I only live 45 minutes from the area. 

sabel

Any word on the Cades Cove area yet?

Vermonster

Fatman1966, where do you live?   Following the fire situation closely as I dispatch for a fire management company.  We currently have an engine stationed for the Feds in Norton VA.  Relief is on the way as there is quite a bit of moisture coming through this week and next.  Sounds bad in places but our crew isn't too busy where they are.  Take care!

Verna

DNR (Dept of Natural Resources) in Indiana have sent a firefighting crew from the state. It's such a gorgeous area in NC. 

cbarnhill

im from Oak Ridge, TN and spent many summers in gatlinburg. This is a heart breaker. I'll check with my sister in Maryville tomorrow about the fate of Cade's cove. 

Machak88

So sad to hear about the devastation in the Smoky Mountains NP,  Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge, TN. We have had an exceptionally dry fall in the South East, and many forest fires occured throughout the region over the past several weeks. Half of Georgia was having air quality issues due to North GA forest fires. Last night after 43 consecutive days without any precipitation, we finally got some rain... hopefully the rain reached further north too.

cbarnhill

According to my sister in maryville, they got rain. In fact a tornado in Athens! Fires are still burning but it helped. Cade's cove is fine but wears valley was hard hit. They removed all the birds from parrot mountain near Dollywood but the aviary survived. They are letting folks back in pidgeon forge today but not gatlinburg. Several thousands still in shelters. 

Ratkity

Everyone in the area please be safe. You are important to our little family here.

pthomas745

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=89195

With drought gripping the southeastern U.S., intense and destructive wildfires have raged in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina for much of November. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a natural-color image (top) of smoke billowing from several of the fires on November 27, 2016.

jkjenn

The fire is now on Inciweb and has an official FB page. So far there have been 700 structures damaged or destroyed and the death toll currently stands at 7 with people still unaccounted for by relatives. Westgate Resort had to evacuate 1,200 people in 15 minutes before overtook much of the property.  Per the Inciweb site,  the fire danger is still quite high.

One thing to bear in mind is that the wind that fueled the explosiveness of the fire also brought down a lot of trees and even areas untouched by fire will need to have trails cleared and with winter coming, that challenge is increased. Numerous reports from evacuees indicated that escaping the approaching flames was complicated by downed trees. Police officers were shown with their personal saws, cutting up fallen trees to help clear the paths.

Elkmont Campground did not receive any damage from fire, although some structures had roof damage from wind.

I think Gatlinburg is like a second home to most of the state of Tennessee and between the fire, the weather, and Chattanooga bus tragedy, it has been a rough week for them.

Fatman1966

Vermonster said:

Fatman1966, where do you live?   Following the fire situation closely as I dispatch for a fire management company.  We currently have an engine stationed for the Feds in Norton VA.  Relief is on the way as there is quite a bit of moisture coming through this week and next.  Sounds bad in places but our crew isn't too busy where they are.  Take care!

Knoxville

webcrawler

Really bad,

the wife iand I camp there a lot and love the area...

reedd

This is so sad and my heart goes out to everyone affected!  I loved going into the hills around there looking for wildflowers and remembered a few of the buildings from when I was a kid.  I grew up in a little town North of Knoxville and my Dad still lives there.  He said that it is as dry as a powder keg, as they hadn't had rain for several weeks, and he has never seen it that dry during his 80+ years.  There are a couple of springs coming out of the bluffs by his house and the flow is pretty low right now.  There are some fires a little ways North of his area but luckily they are mostly in the uninhabited areas.  I'm flying into Knoxville on Tuesday for a week long visit with my Dad but I dread seeing the impact of the drought and the destruction caused by the fires and wind.  Hopefully the rains will set in and squelch the fires.

ericnliz

reedd, Best wishes and prayers to those folks affected by not only the fires, but tornadoes as well. Please travel safe!

Nomad

Saw a pic today where the temp got so high it melted the aluminum rims off a car. Little rivers of aluminum running away from the vehicle. That's hot.

Cyclonic

I was in the area just two weeks ago, we usually do Dollywood this time of year.

I traveled there via Skyline Drive, the Blue Ridge Parkway and then finally the Cherohala Skyway.  I had heard about the fires, but it was very eye opening to see what was going on.

I stayed one night in Robinsville, NC.  There were several fire fighters staying in the campground that I had a chance to talk with.  At that point Robinsville was a base for a lot of them as the largest fire then was in the Joyce Kilmore Wilderness area.  It then was mostly unreachable, so they were building fire breaks and dumping water from the air.

Most of the fires were fairly small, but due to the very dry conditions they would pop up out of no where.  They said they would get one under control and another would break out.

Driving and hiking along the Cherohala the next day the only vehicles I saw for the most part were forest service fire vehicles.  Lots of air crews flying over head too.  Coming into Tellico Plains they had a fire pop up along the skyway that morning, and when I got there they had only just reopened it.  It was very strange to be driving by smoldering forest right on the side of the road.

Here are a couple of photos I took, one of the smoke from the fire outside Tellico Plains, and other of a landing zone set up on Huckleberry Knob.

Vermonster

Thanks for that Cyclonic.  I was on a fire crew in the Joyce Kilmer wilderness area in 1999, the last big fire year in the southeast.  Retired now, to old to climb those mountains!

Cyclonic

They are some tough guys working in some tough old mountains.  Very friendly though, I was glad to have talked to them and gotten some insight on what they do.

jkjenn

I am still piecing together the story, but it sounds like the fire went from about 3 acres to over 10,000 acres in about 15 minutes, as a result of hurricane force wind gusts. In addition to embers from the main fire, they had new fires starting from falling power lines. They had less than 15 minutes to evacuate, and mandatory evacuation notices only hit tv and radio, not via phone. The concern was that the limitations of 90 characters through the emergency alert system would confuse people. 911 was handling calls but did not have a way to get help to people. One couple in their 80's had to climb down the mountain, in the dark, to safety because downed trees blocked the road. It makes you wonder if there were others who did the same but did not succeed. Sadly, the death toll has risen to 13.

It makes you aware of the need to know what your primary and secondary escape route will be, if needed.

The NPS Superintendent, Cash, said he had hiked the trail where the fire started and it was definitely scorched earth. Gatlinburg sits in sort of a bowl between the mountains and will now have to be concerned about flash flooding over the burn scar, I am afraid.

They are looking to speak with anyone who was hiking in the Chimney Tops region last week to see if they might have seen something that will help with their investigation. I think this will be a tough crime to solve.

Photomom

It is a beautiful area but so many people are dependent upon the tourist industry for their livings. I know Dolly Parton has stepped up to help those who have lost their homes but it will be a long time before the area is back to normal.

Vermonster

Our engine is headed back to VT tomorrow.  Sounds like things are winding down

jkjenn

Photomom said:

It is a beautiful area but so many people are dependent upon the tourist industry for their livings. I know Dolly Parton has stepped up to help those who have lost their homes but it will be a long time before the area is back to normal.

Yes, Dolly has stepped up in a big way. She has a telethon planned for mid-month, too.

Butch Jones, the current UT football coach is donating his bonus from their bowl appearance ($100,000) to the victims. Former coach, Phil Fulmer, who had to evacuate, also, showed up at an  with all of his old coaching sideline clothing and coats.

As of last night, the fire was 42% contained and the death toll had risen to 14, sadly.