Storms swept West Virginia on Tuesday, providing rainfall over wildfires in the eastern region of the state. Meanwhile, residents are still grappling with property damages on the ground.
Storms swept through West Virginia on Tuesday, knocking down trees and powerlines.
But the rainfall provided an unexpected benefit to communities in the Potomac Highlands and Eastern Panhandle: helping quash fires that have burned for days on end.
Emergency responders are continuing to monitor the region after extensive wildfires burned through more than 5,000 acres in late March.
All of the wildfires have since been contained, which means emergency responders have surrounded them to restrict their spread. But portions of the fire continue to burn, and smaller fires have popped up elsewhere in the state.
Now, the added rainfall has helped emergency responders gain further control over the wildfires, according to Assistant State Forester Linda Carnell.
“We’ve already got over an inch of rain,” she said. “Yes, there are hindrances to too much rain. But, in the long run, this will definitely help get the upper edge on all these fires.”
Still, Carnell said rainstorms are often followed by intense winds. That means residents should remain vigilant about fire safety protocol.
In the meantime, though, she said emergency responders are appreciative of the win.
“It’s a good thing. We’re happy for the rain,” Carnell said. “We definitely needed it.”
A large puddle on Shepherd University’s campus Tuesday following heavy rain. Rainstorms on Tuesday and Wednesday helped further contain wildfires in West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands and Eastern Panhandle.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
While the wildfires have been contained, damages continue to affect residents on the ground.
Paul Lewis serves as director of emergency management for Hardy County, one of the areas most affected by the fires. He said the fires have caused significant structural damage, and displaced some residents from their homes.
“We’ve had some houses lost and those people right now are in one of the shelters trying to find a place to relocate,” he said. “There’s at least two families there.”
In addition to homes, several cabins and outbuildings have been destroyed by the flames, he said.
While county officials continue to monitor the situation locally, Lewis said that residents have coordinated with relief organizations to access additional support.
For example, the Catholic Charities of West Virginia has provided resources to residents in need. The Hardy County 4-H Camp, located in Wardensville, has also served as a temporary relief shelter for some residents, he said.
Additionally, Lewis said residents facing damage to their places of residence can contact The American Red Cross of the Greater Shenandoah Valley for further support.
Lewis said the county is still collecting data on the extent of structural damages and further updates will be provided in future.
For more information on wildfire incidents in West Virginia, visit the Division of Forestry’s Fire Report webpage.
Residents affected by the wildfires can contact the Central Appalachian Region of the American Red Cross for support.
West Virginia National Guard personnel were deployed to Hardy County Friday. They have joined an effort to put out wildfires sweeping across eastern West Virginia and neighboring states.
Two helicopters and several National Guard personnel were deployed to Hardy County on Friday.
They aim to assist the West Virginia Division of Forestry and other emergency response personnel in quenching the blazes.
The deployment of National Guard personnel follows Gov. Jim Justice’s state of emergency declaration Thursday afternoon.
The National Guard said more than 4,000 acres of land has burned as of Friday.
Helicopters in use by the National Guard can hold 630 gallons of water each, which personnel then disperse over wildfires from above. This helps target areas of the wildfires that are unsafe for emergency responders to approach on the ground.
“Our aircrews have extensive experience in helping to combat wildland fires,” said Bill Crane, adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard in a press release Thursday.
“We will do all we can to help bring these fires under control to protect lives and property in the impacted communities,” he said.
Dropping water onto wildfires from above allows firefighters to extinguish fires that are unsafe for ground personnel to approach. Photo Credit: West Virginia National Guard
Wildfires in several Eastern Panhandle and Potomac Highlands counties have burned through thousands of acres cumulatively. Emergency personnel are on the ground fighting the flames.
Updated on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 4:15 p.m.
Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for Grant, Hampshire, Hardy and Pendleton counties over ongoing wildfires.
According to a Thursday press release, the emergency declaration will allow for resources and emergency response efforts to more swiftly reach those affected by the fires.
In a separate Thursday statement, U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va-2, said he has reached out to officials in the affected counties to provide support.
“I applaud the brave firefighters on the front lines of these fires who are doing all they can to contain the fires,” he said. “I thank the crews from across the state that have made their way to the Eastern Panhandle to assist.”
Original Post:Wildfires Blaze Thousands Of Acres In Eastern Panhandle, Potomac Highlands
After days of strong winds and low humidity, wildfires have burned across thousands of acres in eastern West Virginia this week, according to estimates from the West Virginia Division of Forestry.
Assistant State Forester Linda Carnell said that emergency personnel are working to quell the fires, which grew from separate origins but likely spread due to current weather conditions.
Carnell said the wildfires have burned most intensely in Berkeley, Hardy, Hampshire, Morgan and Pendleton counties, marking the arrival of what she described as “spring fire season.”
From March 1 to May 31 each year, the state bans most forms of outdoor fires from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fluctuating temperatures, humidity and wind levels — hallmarks of spring — make it harder to control burns, and more likely that small fires will spread into something more dangerous.
Fire departments from all of the affected counties and several neighboring counties are currently in the field, working to put out the fires, Carnell said. More information on the total damage and the causes of the wildfires will surface once their work is complete.
So far, the fires have caused significant structural damage, and also burned through several areas of forest land, she said. “It’s been pretty devastating just within these few days, especially once you start losing structures.”
While the exact origins of each fire are not yet known, Carnell said there are several recurring causes of wildfires during the early spring, like a burn spreading uncontrollably or a tree branch falling onto a power line.
While emergency personnel respond to the current incidents, Carnell offered a simple piece of advice to residents across the state: “Refrain from any type of burning outside till we get significant precipitation.”
For more information on wildfire incidents in West Virginia, visit the Division of Forestry’s Fire Report webpage.
A newspaper investigation has revealed that National Park Service officials underestimated the severity of the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains National Park wildfire, and were slow to alert Tennessee officials about the danger. Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter at the Knoxville News Sentinel/Knox News. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Whetstone to learn more.
This conversation was originally heard on the Feb. 4, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.
In November 2016, a wildfire escaped from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park into the nearby tourist towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. At least 14 people were killed and 190 injured, and more than 14,000 residents and tourists had to be evacuated out of the area.
Now, a newspaper investigation has revealed that National Park Service officials underestimated the severity of the wildfire, and were slow to alert Tennessee officials about the danger.
The transcript below has been edited for clarity and length. For more, listen to the full interview on Inside Appalachia or via the streaming widget above.
An aerial view shows the destruction at Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort and Spa the day after a wildfire hit Gatlinburg on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016, in Sevier County.
Credit: Knox News
Adams: Can you refresh our memory on that 2016 fire and what happened with it?
Whetstone: You have to remember, in 2016 there was an exceptional drought, one of the worst droughts in state [Tennessee] history. The region was in a pretty severe drought in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia. So it was peak fire season, more so than normal. This wildfire just happened to be in a perfect storm of sorts.
It began Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, in November 2016. The park was severely understaffed because of the holiday. You had people who were new to management positions that didn’t want to tell people not to take off for the holiday. The fire was up high in Chimney Tops, which is a weird peak in the Smokies. I think when most people think of the Smokies, they think of rolling hills and tree-topped mountains. The Chimney Tops is pretty much the only peak in the park that’s rocky. The fire started way up top. It was in a spot that really couldn’t be taken care of or could be fought. So they let it burn out. That was the plan — except that it didn’t, obviously.
The day the fire blew out of the park into Gatlinburg had a number of things that went wrong outside of just park officials not letting Gatlinburg know what was going on. You have what’s called a “mountain wave,” which some people may be familiar with. It’s certain times of year, typically in late November in the Smokies, where you have phenomenal winds that will blow through. We had wind gusts well over 85, 90 mph. That Monday, it just blew the fire, that had been largely contained to the park, well outside of the park and through Gatlinburg. Other branches of it spotted fires up through Pigeon Forge, outside of Dollywood.
At the end of the day, 14 people died. Hundreds were injured and something like 2,000 buildings were destroyed.
Adams: You’ve been looking into the National Park Service’s initial response to this fire. What gave you the idea for this investigation, and how did you go about doing it?
Whetstone: I’d been writing about the wildfire. I was there the night that it happened, at least in Pigeon Forge. You couldn’t get into Gatlinburg. Emergency crews wouldn’t let you get into Gatlinburg, which was probably a good call. So, it’s something that I’ve been working on and off for seven years. In the last two years, I really kind of spearheaded our reporting on that and continue to follow a federal lawsuit against the park service the victims of the fire filed. I got a new set of documents — 1,500 pages of federal records that we hadn’t previously seen — from a source, and those records really spawned the effort.
Knox News investigative reporter Tyler Whetstone.
Credit: Knox News
Adams: Tell me a little bit about what y’all found in all those documents.
Whetstone: There’s really three findings. The first is, early on, the date that the fire broke out of the park, park officials were saying on the radio that the fire could leave the park and go as far as Ski Mountain. If you’re familiar with Gatlinburg, Ski Mountain is on the far end of town near the park, but it kind of winds its way around the city. It’s where a lot of residents live. It would have been another three or four hours before park officials let the city know that the fire could leave the park, but they never said “Ski Mountain.” City officials thought it would be in one place and were never given the heads-up that it could go to an entirely different place, and that’s where most of the deaths occurred, unfortunately.
The second story was, the man in charge of the fire — the fire management officer, the guy who’s in charge of the response, and in charge of how the fire is handled — his name is Greg Salansky. Greg texted another park official on Saturday, saying basically that the park should be prepared because “Monday might get exciting.” And Monday, of course, was not just exciting, it was awful and ended up being a lot worse than Greg was expecting. So it calls into question some of the decisions. The park service never had anyone watch the fire overnight, any of the five nights it burned, which experts in wildland fires will tell you is a no-no. You always want to have someone watching the fire just in case it blows out of the park, or grows, or just to get an idea of what’s going on.
Then lastly, we had obtained an audio recording of park superintendent Cassius Cash receiving a call early Sunday morning at 3 a.m. It’s a weird call because he answers the phone, and it’s a police dispatch telling him that the fire had grown. And Cash assumed that it hadn’t. But he didn’t check with anyone, he just downplayed it and said, it’s not a big deal to worry about it, it’s a small thing. But if you’re in charge of the park, and a fire is reported to have grown tenfold at least over a couple of hours, it’s something that you need to check out. That’s what wildland fire experts told me. It’s something that the park officials were not ready to do. They were not used to these types of events, not used to this type of fire certainly. And just one mistake after another unfortunately, led to a pretty awful, awful week.
This week on Inside Appalachia, a wildfire in 2016 escaped the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It killed 14 people, injured dozens more and destroyed parts of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. We talk with an investigative journalist who has new information on the incident. Also, four decades ago rice seeds from Laos crossed the ocean to California and made their way to a family of Hmong farmers in North Carolina. And the Appalachian trail has been exhaustively hiked, explored and written about, but it’s still got a few secrets left.
In 2016, a wildfire escaped the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It killed 14 people, injured dozens more and destroyed parts of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. We talk with an investigative journalist who has new information on the incident.
Also, four decades ago rice seeds from Laos crossed the ocean to California and made their way to a family of Hmong farmers in North Carolina.
And the Appalachian trail has been exhaustively hiked, explored and written about, but it’s still got a few secrets left.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
In 2016, a wildfire at Chimney Tops in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee spread beyond the park boundaries into the nearby tourist towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. At least 14 people were killed. Many more were injured and thousands of residents and tourists had to be evacuated.
A new investigation revealed that National Park Service officials underestimated the severity of the wildfire and were slow to alert Tennessee officials about the danger.
Tyler Whetstone, an investigative reporter, spoke with Mason Adams about his reporting.
The Sweet Sticky Rice Of Western North Carolina
Tou Lee holds sweet sticky rice stalks in his rice field in Morganton, North Carolina.
Credit: Rachel Moore/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
When you think of rice, you might not think of Western North Carolina. But the area is home to several varieties of heirloom rice that made their way here from Laos nearly five decades ago. The rice was carried and cultivated by Hmong refugees.
One family now sells their rice at markets and to restaurants, and they’ve built a passionate following.
Folkways Reporter Rachel Moore has this story.
Save The Salamanders!
The West Virginia spring salamander.
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
Have you ever heard of a West Virginia spring salamander? They’re a species found in the General Davis Cave in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, but there are only a few hundred left.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to put the West Virginia spring salamander on the endangered species list.
WVPB’s Curtis Tate spoke with Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
An Appalachian Trail Mystery
The Appalachian Trail was completed in 1927. For 25 years, hikers took to the trail and traveled along the mountains from Georgia to Maine, but then the trail was moved. And the old trail was nearly forgotten.
Historian and podcaster Mills Kelly discovered the lost trail and wrote about it in his new book, Virginia’s Lost Appalachian Trail.
WMRA’s Chris Boros speaks to Kelly about rediscovering the trail.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by David Mayfield, Chris Knight, John Blissard, John Inghram, Eric Vincent Huey and Steve Earle.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
On this West Virginia Morning, a wildfire in 2016 escaped the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and made it as far as Gatlinburg, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with investigative reporter Tyler Whetstone about new information he’s helped bring to light about the fires.
On this West Virginia Morning, a wildfire in 2016 escaped the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and made it as far as Gatlinburg, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with investigative reporter Tyler Whetstone about new information he’s helped bring to light about the fires.
Also, in this show, our MountainStage Song of the Week comes to us from Americana Tex-Mex, indie rock group Calexico, who made their fourth appearance on the show. We listen to their performance of “Cumbia de Donde,” from their album Edge of the Sun.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Our Appalachia Health News project is made possible with support from CAMC and Marshall Health.
West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.
Eric Douglas is our news director and producer.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
