Fire in the Smokies

[Ronald Blue]

That means there was sustained temperatures over 1200 degrees to make this happen. Quite an inferno. How sad. I saw there are still more than 50 missing.

[Stewie Simpson]

Those that made the decision to build their homes within heavily forested areas are taking on an unacceptable fire risk. I feel greater sadness for the loss of natural wildlife that were caught up in the fire.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Those that made the decision to build their homes within heavily forested areas are taking on an unacceptable fire risk. I feel greater sadness for the loss of natural wildlife that were caught up in the fire.

People choose to build their homes in risky forested areas, riverine flood plains, coastal flood plains, tornado alleys, hurricane prone areas, tsunami zones, brush fire prone areas, grass fire prone plains, mud slide paths, on earthquake faults, in drought plagued regions, on hidden sink holes, in hail prone regions, on crocodile infested waterways, toad plagued states, and in cities that burn. I guess we should all live in Australia? Y'all are free from all this mayhem? Right?

I'd love to see your home built in this un-forested, non-brushy, anti-grassy, de-mountained, water-less but drought-free, animal-free, etc., etc.... paradise.

Condolences to the grieving and displaced.

[daryl moses]

Those that made the decision to build their homes within heavily forested areas are taking on an unacceptable fire risk. I feel greater sadness for the loss of natural wildlife that were caught up in the fire.

I know of nowhere on earth that is completely safe. Hurricanes, tornados, mudslides, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc.
I'll take my chances in my heavily forested area.
unlike you I feel more sadness for the "people" that lost their lives and those that survived them than the wildlife.

[Ronald Blue]

I know of nowhere on earth that is completely safe. Hurricanes, tornados, mudslides, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc.
I'll take my chances in my heavily forested area.
unlike you I feel more sadness for the "people" that lost their lives and those that survived them than the wildlife.

I agree Daryl. The wildlife never comes before human life. This is an unfortunate event and my sympathies to all those impacted by the fire.

[John K Jordan]

I agree Daryl. The wildlife never comes before human life. This is an unfortunate event and my sympathies to all those impacted by the fire.

The emotional impact may be wide. I work every week with kids (5-8) and realized today how traumatized some kids are by hearing about this fire and thinking about how this could happen to them, their house, their family. Today one little girl's voice was shaking as she talked about this. Anyone with small kids might do well to talk to them since kids sometimes don't bring up things that scare them.

JKJ

[Dok Yager]

A truly horrific catastrophe for anyone there. My neighbor is from there and just got back on Sunday with some unbelievable pictures from there. It just missed some folks and decimated others. They are saying it was arson. She has a raspy voice from inhaling so much smoke and she said all of Sever county is devastated. She and a couple of friends bought a pallet of dog food and a pallet of blankets, then cleaned out two drug stores of visine, clear eyes, etc and as many face and hand wipes as they could find and some masks as well and took them to two fire stations to be distributed.

[Matt Meiser]

I was just looking at Sevier County's GIS system marking all the damage. The awesome cabin we rented 2 years ago apparently is OK, but two were lost just up the mountain and the fire apparently reached within 2 parcels.

The number of pins on the map representing damaged structures is astonishing.