New Ways To Combat Wildfires

When the elements of fire, heat plus litter and oxygen, are produced in the same area on a mass scale it can lead to thousands of people being displaced from their homes and losing loved ones.

The Gatlinburg wildfires in 2016 taught lessons in risk-management and prevention. The ways to be more prepared for the next extreme fire on a large scale is through education and preparedness.

Kevin Nunn, Wild Land Fire Coordinator for Pigeon Forge, is one of the people responsible for making programs of fire prevention work in the area.

"(Living here), it is a risk you accept,” Nunn said. "Our landscape and terrain make this area a heavy target.”

In East Tennessee, fire prevention is still a hot topic at most local government meetings, particularly where the drought meter looks like the one in Southern California. Communities adapt better when people know more about the risk of extreme fire, and how they are vulnerable.

“I think the best measure of prevention of large wildfires is to continue to allow small-scale, prescribed, low severity wildfire to burn,” researcher Mali Hubert said.

Prevention can come in many different forms when wildfires are in Tennessee. Burning small areas at a time can get ahead of a potentially disastrous situation. A problem with prescribed burning is the vegetation may not able to rebound from burns as quickly as other environments, like California. That can lead to the land being unacceptable and unusable for both locals and tourists.

As I went deeper into Smoky Mountain National Park, the fewer answers I found about the exact change that took place from 2016 to now. Mostly, there was a pamphlet to read but no one to talk to.  The readings offered some good insights about being smart while burning or post-burn.

And that is why education for locals and tourist alike is more accessible and is the main course of action that heated up since the fire in 2016. Among many other programs, a governmental grant covered two 90 second safety videos and will be shown in cabins all across the area.

“The educational program has been ramped up since 2016,” Nunn said, “We have a newsletter that goes every week to every mailbox in the city. We make a fire wise bulletin in the Fall and we have brush collection program, so people can bring (their) brush to the curb and picked up for free.”

While typical brush can be discarded on your residence, vegetation on the forest floor is much harder to tend too. With there not being a large-scale fire since 1992, a lot of fuel was waiting to be burned. Fire suppression played a key role in the events of 2016.

“Because East Tennessee has experienced fire suppression and prevention for so long, litter from trees of nature and under story vegetation created a fire hazard since they were not adapted to fire and tend to burn quickly, thus drawing fire upward,” Hubert said.

While East Tennessee had not experienced a large-scale burn in 24 years, there were still measures residents could have taken to avoid damage to their personal property.

The term ‘Firewise Construction’ is one that means you do little things, like have rocks next to your house instead of mulch, to prevent a fire from swallowing your property or forcing you to evacuate.

“Fire Wise Construction and landscaping will help (citizens of the area),” Nunn said, “You can see success stories in Colorado, California and even Tennessee…Early evacuation was adopted, but it takes more incremental changes to be Fire Wise.”

It will not happen overnight, but making changes to the way property is set up would make the entire area safer against fire. For a tourist, watching a video in the cabin or reading a pamphlet at the Welcome Center might be the only exposure to fire prevention.

Studying the local weather can be the major preventative measure to take for tourists or people new to the area.

In 2016, the Smokey Mountain National Park was experiencing higher drought level then normal and high winds. There may have been an element of human impact on the fire, but the three components of fire were present during a burn.

Dr. Alexandre Mederiros-Rodrigues, an expert in recover of natural disasters, has spent some time researching the wildfire and events that transpired after.

“The unpredictability of the fire is connected to a lot (in Gatlinburg), It is difficult to predict the nature of a wildfire in Gatlinburg,” Dr. Medeiros-Rodrigues said.

The unpredictability of a wildfire is the concern in the area. Drought is one factor that leads to a close prediction, but it is hard to plan for an event like 2016 until it is happening or has just happened.

Other environments around the country have been studied as well as the local response being better by everybody in the Gatlinburg area. There has been noticeably better communication and a better plan in place since 2016 for all of those whose job it is to be involved.

“There have been several measures taken (since 2016),” Assistant City Manager of Pigeon Forge Eric Brackens said. “There have been action plans put in place, a lot of work has been done by all the surrounding people.”

Even with plans in place, burning is something that will happen in Smokey Mountain National Park. Living near trees and vegetation leads to more risk, but discarding the nature and creating a boundary is not the answer according to Kevin Nunn. Embers from the fire will still jump across and can burn, even with no trees in the way. The vegetation will always be at risk of flames in the Smoky Mountains.

The adaptation of vegetation plays a key role in the spread of wildfires. Since wildfires are not as prevalent in this area of the country opposed to others, the vegetation is not used to being burned.

“We have tried to suppress fire as much as possible thus creating a landscape of vegetation that are vulnerable to fire,” Hubert said, “Now when we do get a large wildfire it destroys a lot of the landscape with a longer recovery time because the vegetation that were present previously were not adapted to wildfire.”

While other factors certainly play a role in wildfires, the biggest reason for wildfires is humans. Nearly 85% of wildfires burned across the United States are because of humans. Whether a local or tourist, human debris fire are the biggest problems in Smoky Mountain National Park.

“In the state of Tennessee, the biggest cause (of wildfires) is escape debris fire,” Nunn said, “Somebody is out burning brush and they do not understand the weather and (the fire) gets away from their boundary.”

"It is not about climate change, it is about (the) exponentially increasing local weather"

- Kevin Nunn

Education is so important. Many fires can be put out before they start by teaching one other how to be smart while burning. Burning in the Smoky Mountains is not going to vanish 100%, but changes were needed and they have been made.

The burning just about every year is what makes East Tennessee primed like California for an enormous wildfire. The possibility to burn happens just about every day, but proper prevention steps can be the answer to almost any burning problem.

The Great Smoky Mountains have a rich history of treating its locals and tourists with some great food, views and shows. It is the perfect get-a-way for almost anybody in the surrounding areas. The events that transpired in 2016 have made the education and preparedness for the next wildfire better for anybody visiting or living close by.

“Sometimes it takes (a large fire) to wake people up and remind them that they are in a risky environment,” Nunn said, “To predict a fire, all you have to do is look at (the) local weather.”

“It is not about climate change, it is about (the) exponentially increasing local weather,” he added, “you have to be aware when it is hot and dry weather."

A wildfire fire can start in anybody’s back yard in Pigeon Forge. It is up to either the people living there or staying in cabins to prevent the next large-scale wildfire in the park.

There are many forms of education on forest fires for anybody new to the area, that was clear at the Welcome Center. Help comes in many forms for anybody who seeks to be a little safer during their time in the Smoky Mountains.

Wildfires can bring fear out in people, especially when it happens near the one of the biggest tourists’ destinations in the state. To prevent that fear, there is a need to make proper preparations when the local weather looks like it can carry a fire.