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Firefighters Trying To Contain Blaze In Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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By Compiled From N... - November 6th, 2022

Firefighters were trying Sunday afternoon to contain a 30-acre wildfire in Great Smoky Mountains National Park/NPS file

A wildfire spotted along the western boundary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Sunday was being battled from the ground and the air in a bid to contain it.

The fire covered about 5 acres when it was reported to park staff by Tennessee officials shortly after 11:30 a.m. local time Sunday. It was located along Highway 129 near mile marker 4.5, roughly 2 miles west of the highway's intersection with the Parson Branch Road exit near Chilhowee lake.

Approximately 40 wildland fire personnel were working to suppress the fire, which had grown to about 30 acres, using hand crews, engines, and air operations. Two Type 6 engine crews, a helicopter crew, Cherokee National Forest hotshot crew, and hand crews from the National Park Service Appalachian Piedmont Coastal Fire Management Zone module, Blount County, and Graham County were battling the flames Sunday afternoon. There was no containment on the fire, which was entirely inside the national park.

Highway 129 remains open with Tennessee Highway Patrol managing traffic. Parson Branch Road is closed. The fire was located near Cattail Branch in the backcountry of the park and is not near any hiking trails.

Six years ago the Chimney Tops 2 Fire broke out in the national park right before Thanksgiving. That fire ravaged approximately 11,000 acres of the park’s wooded landscape. It spilled out of the park and pulled the town of Gatlinburg into its grasp. Fourteen people died and approximately 2,500 homes and buildings were either destroyed or damaged outside park boundaries. 

That deadly fire was fed by kindling-dry forests and whipped out of control by hurricane-force winds and overwhelmed" the park staff's ability to fight it, according to an independent review of the blaze.

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