That doesnt mean excessive chainsaw mania; but it doesnt mean going to the other extreme with the type of forestry management in some of our Parks and other public lands. The next morning, the morning of 28th, I took boys to school and went to a dr. appointment in Sevierville. The two juveniles who set a fire are not alone in this. The miracle is that more people did not I can only hope that the actions are being undertaken somewhere and by the decision-makers and leaders to think and act differently. Their inter-agency investigation needs to look at the 1st Chimney Tops Fire of the 12/13th to the 17th of November 2016. He has had to struggle with the untimely death of his very healthy and active in younger retirement parents but both of us having been an EMS and fire service, he is of the opinion just as I am that the NPS as well as the Gatlinburg fire chief and the city and county officials have the most of blood on their hands . milepost 316. But those heroes should have never been in that situation in the first place. Which is pretty near chimney tops. I began to notice people smoking while driving their vehicles when I would be out and about and they would flick burning embers out windows and sometimes throw cigarettes out windows. Fire erupts on both side of Highway 441 between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 28, 2016. This eventually will affect us all at some point in time, as we too may one day find ourselves faced with similar circumstance. This is how the devastating Gatlinburg wildfire erupted overnight Vincent Gabrielle, Knoxville News Sentinel. The Thomas Divide Complex Fire comprises two wildfires the 140-acre Stone Pile Fire and the Cooper Creek Fire, which is estimated to be 170 acres. Three people were killed and 14 others sent to area hospitals, Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said Tuesday. Crews working a Gatlinburg structure fire that began early Sunday morning discovered a body. On Wednesday, November 23, 2016 a hiker on the popular Chimney Tops Trail managed to capture a photo of two teenage boys dropping lit matches on the trail despite the current no-burn order in the area. I wonder when NPS actually put out a request for Incident Management Team support. I am a property owner in the Lake of the Ozarks, in Missouri, and oddly enough, had just returned from a trip to Branson, Missouri. Without sufficient safe zones being created in advance each road was easily blocked either by fire or debris. Things dont change unless people stand up and make them change. Did the fire have to be so devastating? So who would you blame the people that died, wildlife and homeowners. Dollywood flat out refused to even consider we needed any help and also tried to shame our neighbor to discourage home not to take it. If I had even been in the bathroom or downstairs I wouldve died . People died and lost so much and that is absolutely tragic! It had burned into a picnic area and crossed the main roadinto the park, US Highway 441. I realize the City of Gatlinburg is open and ready for business and business is booming, thats good for them but it doesnt help those of us that lost their home. It is a truism that many people want all the benefits of government, but dont want to pay for them. Compare the events to their fire management manual and contradictions are present. Back home in West TN, when tornado warnings were active in a particular area there were loud sirens that went off. Who caused the fire in Gatlinburg? When I crawled my way up Pinecrest Drive to Wiley Oakley through dense smoke, I saw a Gatlinburg pumper at the top of the hill. The next morning we werent allowed to go check on our house because of fires still burning and impassable roads. When maintenance employees with GRSM drove past the Chimney Tops 2 Fire early Mondaymorning they saw that the intensity and rate of spread of the fire had increased dramatically. As I learned in the first 12 hours what took place there, I realized that there was almost no preparation for the risk of a fire, on any They decided instead to monitor and to identifyon a map areas for indirect containment lines which encompassed 410 acres. Chief Kurtz was right on target to compare South Canyon, Yarnell, and now Chimney Top 2. The excellent Park folks seemed to just monitor it, and it resolved itself. Tennessee Wildfire Cause: Gatlinburg Fires May Have Been Man-Made Intense, deep burning fires with significant downwind spotting should be expected. Even life-long locals said they had never seen rhododendren wither up before. By the time we got to the Marshalls house it was 6:00 PM and they were watching the news. Since November 29 it has rained about every 2 to 3 daysin the Gatlinburg area. It appears that only TEMA has the authority to give a notice over multiple counties, but they didnt take the lead until Monday night, after the fact. This makes no logical sense. When one seriously examines the events, these lives could have been spared despite the power of fire and wind. Chalet Village Gatlinburg, Tommy there is a class action lawsuit being formulated by a Knoxville attorney. The person or people responsible for the fire have not yet been found. What good does it do to lynch those who are learning and gaining the very experience we expect and seek? People lost their lives and homes because no warnings!!! I can hear it now, hasnt the NPS learned anything in the past 10-20 yrs? Whomever is in charge locally for the NPS should also be summarily fired. When enough folks dont take a vulnerable interest in situations and root out the evidence and real root causes to a situation, that is how cover-ups and lies live on, and the wrong people or wrong causes go unrooted. http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/tennessee/2016/12/13/timeline-gatlinburg-wildfires/95138656/. Of course they wont. He told me he was scared to drive the truck-its a lot more cumbersome in the local terrain than his little Outback. I have seen local hiking pictures that appear to show two separate smoke columns on Saturday 11/26. The main road out of Gatlinburg is the Spur, which is the 5 mile stretch of Park Service Road that lies between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Arson charges dropped against teens accused in deadly Gatlinburg - WJLA Who was responsible for Gatlinburg fire? I am just saying that it is not necessary to lynch someone in order to hold them accountable. Cafe 420 and Gifts of Gatlinburg were also destroyed. The deaths in this incident can be attributed to being trapped and forced to shelter in place. Virtually no one knows they have it and THEY DID NOT USE IT. They should not be excused because they did not escape the consequences this time of their lax policies and their actual failure to follow the procedures they should have followed. We had a contractor there working on improvements to our house. Not just putting out the fires, but restoring the forest and trails afterward. Down hemlocks are mostly just gone. Triage of resource needs versus values at risk, firefighter safety, resource values and political realities all come into play. Regardless, the appropriate aerial assault should continue. The Seiver County Medical Examiner's office identified the man as 54-year-old Joe Martin Bates, according to the City of Gatlinburg. Yes government at all levels needs to be held accountable; otherwise we regress back into the Dark Ages. That evening, GSM park officials tweeted that a 1.5 acre fire (Chimney Tops 2 fire) was burning in a steep location around the Chimneys. The cleaner told officials he found Bates in the room where the fire started and had what appeared to be a warming fire going. Take care and hang in there. Property owners still have the rights to protect their property. They didnt want CNN down there declaring their tourist town a death trap. with a notice that evacuation is imminent would have been prudent. It took the governor to get the lack of evac into the open, as local gov was trying to keep it out of the press. 321) at Glades Road and the Post Office. China Bazaar, Pucker's Sports Grill, Gifts of Gatlinburg, and Caf 420 were all deemed a complete loss. Yet no one will be severely punished i.e. People responsible during the initial stages of the Chimney Top 2 wildfire need to be held accountable for violating these basic rules of fire physicsperiod. On November 27 the fire was a third of a mileas the crow flies from US Highway 441. It is a primary source and illuminates some of the discussion topics that have been on Wildfire Today. He yelled at Bates to get out, and Bates did leave before coming back without the worker knowing. Much needed rainfall is expected on Monday with additional rainfall possible through Wednesday. OF COURSE the dead hemlocks (and spruces and firs) are changing the picture for fire danger. Now he has the benefit of another 60 to 90 days of another investigation before anything officially or otherwise will be said. A couple of weeks after hearing no hardcore news from Knox News, I wrote the editor asking if the News was still doing hardcore investigation of the fire. Jon Binhammer had an excellent point about the hemlocks. I can only say that I had no peace at all whatsoever after the first word I heard of the terrible fire there .. According to Ms.Schroer, firefighters walked up the Chimney Tops Trail to the top of the hill to size it up. I had heard that many of the stumps and rotted out trees had become abnormally dry because of the drought. I wish this would turn into the biggest Court case in history. But until the review of the fire is complete and the report is published, I would be careful with a statement like this: The Chimney Tops fire was a wildfire being monitored given limited resources initially because of the many other ongoing fires in the region to which fire-fighting resources were committed. What makes one golden and one not? The actual clifts are small and easily avoided. Typos, let us know HERE, and specify which article. If the new location isnt in Gatlinburg, it will definitely be in Sevier County. That night after we arrived home we started getting text from friends showing fires at the Park Vista Hotel, then one from our neighbors across the street, he lives in Knoxville called and said he had been there at 5:30 P.M. this was on the 28th and when he left it was smokey but everything was still fine. I cannot count how many times my wife or I would find a fire smoldering typically from someone who flipped a lit cigarette and the brush when they were finished. As citizens we should be aware of all threats we face and expect our leadership to plan ahead as best they can. I was in my cabin on 28 November and barely made it out alive. I told him there wasnt when I got there at 5 oclock but I could not even see driveways on the way up. He was told there was none/no one. He promised a committee to study what happened and there has been no word since. I think this is more often than not the case. You can only manage one of those. What really was going on here? I later learned that Sevier County pays for an emergency notification system called Code Red Alert. Fire crews were dispatched to a structure fire around 6:30. You are among several Gatlinburg residents that posted local officials told them that everything was OK as late as 5:30 and there was no evacuation notice. That is when it began moving rapidly toward Gatlinburg. When I arrived in Branson at the hotel I was close to a fire exit, and frankly forgot about my nightmare. My vacation cabin in Gatlinburg burn to the ground on November 28. Youre right change is hard to come by. So many unanswered questions? Often times in seeking to take out a person, the real root causes go unaddressed, and sometimes that includes some people taking the fall for decisions of others that were major contributing factors. I responded that the climate is changing, and so are other related situations, and there will be. Had this fire+wind storm happened 3-4 weeks earlier it would have been exponentially worse, lots to be thankful for as we morn with TN. There may be some validity in the DA doing that, but it sure calls their integrity into question. It was about 11:30AM when we got to downtown Gatlinburg, where I took photos of the heavy on the Parkway in town. We spent Thanksgiving there with our family, who left on Sunday. On Friday, Gatlinburg city officials released a report detailing the downtown fire on Oct. 9. Or in steep cliff terrain it just isnt going to happen, no one on the fire. We had better see something besides suggestions for new warning systems and making people that are rebuilding their homes put in overly expensive sprinkler systems that way they can say to the press they made major strides and changes and they learned from the fire. As we reached the Parkway, everything was deserted. When peoples towns and lives are at stake, letting a fire burn or hoping to get lucky is a tough sell. We had somewhat of a plan but both agreed that if we had a warning or concern we would leave because of our location and our neighborhood has no fire hydrants. Screenshot from the Knox News video. Great job on this website, it is very informative and I recommend it to everyone in the business. it would not be the first time that political or other motivation caused biased reporting. The NPS investigation team has all this information and everything posted on Wildfire Today and a lot of info that was never made public. 10/10/22, 1:56 p.m. I hope they end up being involved in the biggest lawsuit anyone has ever seen! This article shows NPS was concerned by and notified of impending high winds. Our forest service guys have been very busy with hand efforts, running dozers in our hazardous terrain and with aircraft. When the simple laws of fire physics and chemistry correctly combine, fuel, heat, oxygen, and in the wildland fire arena available fuels, topography and ideal fire weather conditions mix in perfect alignment plus given adequate TIME, a-bine unattended campfire, an arsonists match, or a slowly backing down-slope surface fire in leaf litter during a record setting drought will ultimately result in a disastrous conflagration. They probably feel they are fortunate and safe because they will not speak out on the topic until the criminal charges are completed against the two youth that perpetrated this fire but they would be foolish to do so as time just continues to churn the anger. Downtown Gatlinburg fire: Experts identify remains found in rubble Have a wildland fire news tip? Another example from my own experience which has been rocked by bias and blatant failure to receive appropriate support and assistance when asked for; causing issues to occur that were later simply blown way out of proportion with conspired lies in order to protect and cover up the real underlying issues and people. Bill, correct me if I am wrong, but aircraft should be on the ground a half hour after sunset? Gatlinburg Fire Cause: Who Started the Wildfire? | Heavy.com That and your wish to pay 50% income tax and there will never be a fire again! This country was founded on open respectful discussion, such as this which has occurred in this article commentary and blog comments.
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