Wildfires across Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia are ravaging the land and quickly approaching communities and endangering lives.
Thick smoke has settled over a wide area of the southern Appalachians, where dozens of uncontrolled wildfires are burning through decades of leaf litter and people breathe in tiny bits of the forest with every gulp of air.
(Patrick Sullivan/The Times-News via AP)
It’s a constant reminder of the threat to many small mountain communities, where relentless drought and now persistent fires and smoke have people under duress.
“A lot of the ladies just went to tears and said this happens in other places, it doesn’t happen here,” pastor Scott Cates said as townspeople donated water, cough drops and other supplies for the firefighters at the Liberty Baptist Church in Tiger, Georgia.
Here, these fires don’t sleep. They burn through the night, through the now-desiccated tinder of deciduous forests accustomed to wet, humid summers and autumns.
“It doesn’t die down after dark,” said fire Capt. Ron Thalacker, who came from Carlsbad, New Mexico, with a fire engine that now draws water from streams and ponds to spray on hotspots in Georgia’s Rabun County, near the epicenter of the southern fires.
(AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Large, wind-driven fires that scorch pine forests in the West often burn in the tree tops and mellow out at night, but these fires are clinging to the ground and actively burning 24 hours a day, said firefighter Chad Cullum of Billings, Montana.
Cullum spoke briefly, as flames rolled down a mountainside behind him. Then he ordered everyone to get out. “We need to leave,” he said sternly, ushering people to move down a rocky dirt road.
More than 5,000 firefighters and support personnel, including many veterans of wildfires in the arid West, and 24 helicopters are battling blazes in the fire zone, which has spread from northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee into eastern Kentucky, the western Carolinas and parts of surrounding states.
Nationally, “there’s a pretty good ability to help out the South right now,” said Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Forest Service. Reinforcements have arrived from at least 37 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, she said this week.
One man died Wednesday on eastern Kentucky’s Mountain Parkway, where smoke decreased visibility. Kentucky State Police said about 14 others were injured in a series of wrecks on both sides of the road.
Trooper Scott Ferrell said a coal truck driver died when he got out of his truck to check on a driver whose vehicle had hit the truck and then was hit by a third vehicle. About 15 vehicles were involved in the chain reaction collisions that closed the highway for nearly 10 hours, Ferrell said.
More than 30 large fires remain uncontained, and overall, a total of 128,000 acres has burned, or about nine times the size of Manhattan.
Firefighters got a lucky break when a fire reversed direction, turning away from the Trail of Tears, which marks the route where the Cherokee and other Indians were forcibly removed from their lands in the 1800s. In national forests, following procedures approved by the tribes, heavy equipment isn’t allowed within 750 feet of the trail bed unless life or property is threatened, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Terry McDonald said.
(Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
Tim Free, a lifelong resident of Rabun County, broke down with emotion as he described how elderly neighbors are struggling with relentless smoke, so thick it blocks the sun. “What we’re fortunate to have here is people who care about people,” he said.
“Anybody that’s outside of their homes is going to have to have something that will basically lubricate their throats — cough drops, lozenges or even a stick of peppermint,” Free said. “Just to get a little lubricant in your eyes is something that’s needed daily because of the smoke.”
Just across the state line in North Carolina, three firefighters were battling the Party Rock fire near the town of Lake Lure after driving 23 hours from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“There was a request for help. We have units available to assist,” Edward Nieto said.
There hasn’t been a fire in the Lake Lure area in a long time, so the forest floor is thick with flammable material, and falling autumn leaves are encouraging the flames to spread, said Victoria Tillotson, a spokeswoman with the North Carolina Forest Service.
A total of 850 people were fighting the Party Rock blaze, which grew to more than 5,700 acres on Tuesday and was still just 19 percent contained, she said.
Randle Montgomery recalled watching television coverage of wildfires in California and considering himself lucky. He never expected a 4,500-acre blaze to threaten Lake Lure, where he works, and Black Mountain, where he’s lived for 16 years.
(Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
“The way this thing takes off, they’ll get it contained, and it just depends on the wind, but it’s turned so many times on us,” said Montgomery, 47. “And it’s got everybody pretty much on edge.”
Tom Stokesberry, an emergency medical technician from Six Rivers National Forest in California, arrived in Georgia’s Rabun County on Veterans Day.
“The goal is to keep this line intact,” Stokesberry said, pointing to a narrow, winding dirt road between a burning mountainside and a pasture that, so far, has been untouched by the fire.
The smoke is hiding the sun in town, but out at the fire’s edge, it appears blood red.
“We call that the red eye of the dragon,” Cullum says.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
If i were a betting person i would bet the fires were started by illegal invaders
Muslim terrorists ADMITTED to setting those terrible fires in Australia a few years ago (I will never be able to erase the photo of the dead horse lying on a road with its ears burned off).
Muslims terrorists have said that setting fires to America’s forests would be a good way to help destroy the country.
I would consider the possibility of Muslim terrorist attack in any forest fire in America.
I think the same way
I would not bet on WHO started them, but it is sure they were not all accidental or nature caused…
Father God have mercy on America against those people who hate our freedom and way of life that glorifies you Lord Jesus !
How disastrous is this? Forests destroyed, animals most likely not able to
escape, and people who have their homes etc. in harms way. These fires
were not caused by lightning but someone thought perhaps wouldn’t it be cool
to lite a match and see what happens. The fire fighters on the lines are one brave
bunch of guys. The smoke blankets the sun and looks like heavy fog, tho when the
smell hits you, you know it is not fog.i pray for the fire men and women and hope soon
they will get all fires under control. This is one mean pollution problem also.
Osama Bin Laden sent out a decree that if you were a MUSLIM JIHAD in America and you couldn’t put together a major attack on the American Soil that you should START WILD FIRES and BURN AMERICA TO THE GROUND. It seems that we are having more wild fires in the last few years than we ever had in this Country.
Don’t you Love America ??
May the good lord bless our firefighters and keep them safe! Always there when you need them.
AMEN!
can supplies be donated at specific points to assist these smoke eaters in their efforts to prevent further damage.
Don’t understand WHY these aren’t getting the ATTENTION AS TERRORIST ACTS that they warrant. Should be HUNDREDS of Agents on it!
There are agents on it Mike. They have already caught three males who started the fires. I’m surprised the report didn’t even mention their capture.
That’s MSM for ya.
Were they Muslims?
How much of the un-maintained land is “government owned”? Private ownership promotes much higher standards of care than the ‘tragedy of the commons’. All you Teddy Roosevelt fans that excuse land ownership FAR outside the constitution are responsible for this.
John Boanerges Redman
We are in apostasy times. Anything can happen. We are surrounded by an invisible enemy who has become children of Satan, that are so blind and controlled by this evil power, and ready to do all kind of harm. But remember, God still on His throne.
AMEN William!!! You are so right!!
Amen!! America is turning it’s back on God !!!! God help us to turn from our wicked ways and turn back to You Lord that America, founded by Christians will be the land that serves You, loves You and be blessed !!!!!
This goes deeper than Muslims, being the possible culprits….. didn’t these States align with the lawless laws that Obama manipulated the Supreme Court Justice to pass? Sometimes, justice comes in a horrible manner! The Lord God has used elements in the earth for many decades to bring His justice & righteousness back in order in Nations. Just saying….think about it. Kim Davis, the County clerk who stood her ground about marriage is defined as the Bible states…between man & a women, was from Tennessee or Kentucky? The State did not stand behind her….you do not come against the Saints or children of God, without paying the consequences! The Righteous will inherit the earth & the wicked cast out.
So right KT!!
The white house must surely declare marshal law and make everyone accountable for who they are and where they are and why.
Anyone with no proof of ID to go to jail until further notice. Land Property owners have to take part in this as it is “between” the two presidential office administrations and, by the time Trump is sworn in there might not be a white house at this nightmare rate of destruction of these states.
Fortunately the Forest Service has a prescribed burn schedule they follow on the national forest here in western Kentucky. Those controlled burns remove lots of the fuel from the forest floor. We haven’t had any measurable rain in several months so that is helping prevent the spread of fire in this end of the state. Meanwhile we are praying for rain and abiding by the burn bans issued by local governments. Several inches of rain will be a welcome gift from God.
Many things Americans don’t know. Part of the Muslim playbook is to start wildfires. Worked in Australia where they know about it. I believe these fires started either by one group or another. But they sure are doing the job of destroying much of our forests.
Our environmentalists (who I prefer to call more accurately Eco-Nazis) want to reduce the world population from the existing 7.5 billion down to the “sustainable” level of 1.5 billion – under their careful supervision. One of their tools is the environmental “regulation” concerning forest management – ‘do not touch touch them”! And so accumulations of dead leaves, sick trees, dry bushes – just wait for a spark to burst into gigantic forest fires all over the country. With that primary goal our Eco-Nazis display total disregard for destruction of rare birds, animals, and flora.
Environmentalism = a cult of death!
Heard a weather man started one so he could get more people to follow him on facebook!