Rain hits fire-ravaged Tennessee tourism town

Up to a half-inch of rain fell Monday night into Tuesday morning, and that might be enough to “virtually stop the spread of the fires”, said Bill Gabbert, managing editor of WildfireToday.com and former executive director of the International Association of Wildland Fire.

James Wood’s mother was telling him on the phone that the wildfire that had roared into Gatlinburg had ignited her home.

“I’m just astonished this is my town”, she said.

Thousands of people, including about 14,000 from Gatlinburg, have fled the area.

However, three people with severe burns were transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center from the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville Hospital overnight. They are asking for prayers that their parents, Jon and Janet, are found.

Emergency officials say they don’t want to let people return too early. More than 2,000 people had been taken to emergency shelters. He said Wal-Mart just made a large donation, and other businesses have been helping throughout the night.

According to an affidavit, a wildfire was reported on October 27 inside the Nantahala National Forest in Macon County. He said the evacuation was caused by the smoke from nearby fires. He rushed back to the home.

Wildfires have plagued wide swaths of the South this fall. The charges against him carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Rain tonight is expected to help douse mountain wildfires that gave Jefferson County skies an unearthly glow yesterday.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency says 30 structures are on fire, including a 16-story hotel on Regan Drive and the Driftwood Apartments in Gatlinburg.

Local officials rushed to get people out of towns as a wildfire raced into Tennessee’s Sevier County on Monday evening.

“We watched a building go down in flames”, said one tearful evacuee who firefighters rescued. “We pray that we don’t experience any more fatalities, but there are still areas that we are trying to get to” because of downed trees and power lines. The winds also knocked down power lines, igniting new fires, according to authorities.

Much remained uncertain for a region that serves as the gateway into the Great Smoky Mountains, the country’s most visited national park. Officials in Cocke and Sevier counties canceled classes for Wednesday.

Efforts to completely extinguish the blaze are very much underway, officials said.

He lived in Chalet Village off Ski Mountain Road in Gatlinburg, and is pretty sure his home, and many others, are gone.

He says the evacuation orders must remain in place until then because there are still areas that haven’t been searched and places where power lines are down. Those storms spawned suspected tornadoes in parts of Alabama and Tennessee, killing five people and injuring more than a dozen. “The Smokey Mountains of Tennessee are burning”.

Sevier County Schools are closed Tuesday due to the fires, the school district said on its website.

While they wait, responders scramble to check more buildings, and families hope for news of the missing.

More fires broke out in Gatlinburg overnight, but more rains offered some relief.

A Tennessee tourist mecca is emerging from the smoke, charred and vacant.

One guest was trapped inside an elevator in one of the buildings that burned down. The only sound came from the eerie screech of hotel fire alarms echoing through the empty streets.

Three people were killed.

As The Two-Way has reported, the entire southeastern U.S.is under extreme drought conditions – in some areas, little or no rain has fallen in the past six months, hurting farmers and creating dangerously dry conditions.

The fires spread quickly on Monday night, when winds topping 87 miles per hour whipped up the flames, catching residents and tourists in the Gatlinburg area by surprise.

In North Carolina, fires have destroyed more than 70,000 acres, and while the state has dealt with its own wildfire issues in the past three weeks, Gov. It opened under the new name of Dollywood in 1986.