A massive wildfire burning in the Tennessee resort towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge has destroyed more than 100 structures, including homes and businesses, authorities said Tuesday.
Mandatory evacuations for residents and visitors were ordered and the National Guard was mobilized to Sevier County to help transport firefighters, remove debris and check on residents, as the fire spread across the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Monday night.
Gatlinburg is 35 miles southeast of Knoxville and has a population of roughly 4,000 people.
“This is the worst of the wildfires we’ve had this year,” Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Dean Flener told The Huffington Post. “This is really bad.”
Over 14,000 people were evacuated and more than 12,000 power outages were reported, Flener said. He confirmed no fatalities had been reported, though four people were transported to the hospital for burn-related injuries. The TEMA has yet to determine the cause of the fire.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tenn...66c01b9ffc
An epidemic of wildfires is far more possible under drought conditions.
Tennessee:
![[Image: e79047a66430b72886ebf7de2d56c4cd.png?itok=SXRZhNp7]](https://www.drought.gov/drought/sites/drought.gov.drought/files/styles/medium/public/externals/e79047a66430b72886ebf7de2d56c4cd.png?itok=SXRZhNp7)
North Carolina:
![[Image: pa07d_dwc.gif]](http://water.usgs.gov/waterwatch/images/pa07d/nc/pa07d_dwc.gif)
Mandatory evacuations for residents and visitors were ordered and the National Guard was mobilized to Sevier County to help transport firefighters, remove debris and check on residents, as the fire spread across the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Monday night.
Gatlinburg is 35 miles southeast of Knoxville and has a population of roughly 4,000 people.
“This is the worst of the wildfires we’ve had this year,” Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Dean Flener told The Huffington Post. “This is really bad.”
Over 14,000 people were evacuated and more than 12,000 power outages were reported, Flener said. He confirmed no fatalities had been reported, though four people were transported to the hospital for burn-related injuries. The TEMA has yet to determine the cause of the fire.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tenn...66c01b9ffc
An epidemic of wildfires is far more possible under drought conditions.
Tennessee:
North Carolina:
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.