UT geography professor bristles at officials’ resistance to safety programs
KNOXVILLE — Poor building codes, willful ignorance by public officials and narrow roads will contribute to the next wildfire disaster with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
University of Tennessee Geography Professor Henri Grissino-Mayer delivered that message Thursday when speaking to more than 50 people at the John C. Hodges Library on campus.
Grissino-Mayer for years warned about the impending danger of wildfires emerging from the national park. His studies of tree rings showed wildfires raged through the land now designated as the park every eight to 10 years.
In some cases, the Indians and then settlers started the fires to renew the forest, consume leaves and fallen trees and enhance hunting.
ELECTED OFFICIALS DISPUTE ‘NEW NORMAL’
The professor gets foot-stomping frustrated when he recalls public officials’ reactions to the warning from a committee of wildland fire experts who studied the Chimney Tops 2 fire that escaped the national park into Sevier County.
That committee of eight professionals made a multitude of recommendations for how to deal more effectively with future wildfires. Their report also warned of the “new normal” of large wildfires in the park.
Climate change has extended the wildfire season across the nation and increased incidences of drought, the group warned. Policies of extinguishing fires that would
consume fuel has provided decades of leaves and fallen timber to feed future wildfires.
People living near the forest have to learn to live with fire, the committee chairman warned.
Officials with Gatlinburg and Sevier County, however, issued a statement disputing the committee’s conclusion.
“We strongly disagree, however, with the characterization made in the Chimney Tops 2 Fire Review that fires of this magnitude are a ‘new norm’ for our region,” government officials said.
Some of those elected officials own construction businesses, rental properties and establishments that cater to tourists. They claimed the Gatlinburg wildfires were “an unprecedented event caused by a perfect storm of extreme drought, hurricane-force winds, and arson.”
“It was among the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history, and no fire of this proportion has ever occurred in our region,” officials said.
Grissino-Mayer is stunned elected officials would ignore the warning from a group of people whose professional lives involved dealing with wildfires.
“That’s unbelievable,” he said. “I guess they don’t want tourists to hear the truth.”
‘PERFECT STORM’ DISPROVED
Grissino-Mayer said the “perfect storm” argument of Gatlinburg and Sevier County officials is factually flawed. Droughts have been occurring regularly in the National Park for decades, with one of the worst in 2007-08.
“I thought for sure it would burn in November 2007,” the professor told the gathering of students, faculty and other interested people at the presentation.
As for hurricane-force winds, Grissino-Mayer produced data showing powerful “mountain waves” of wind occur on average six times a year in the National Park. Arson, he displayed on a screen, is blamed for 42 percent of the 3,000 wildfires in Tennessee on average each year.
The professor bristles when officials proclaim the Nov. 28, 2016, wildfires that covered nearly 18,000 acres as the largest ever recorded in the park.
“The park has been there since 1934, but the forests have been there millions of years,” Grissino-Mayer said.
Analysis of data gleaned from tree rings is still underway, but the professor suspects wildfires would burn as much as 50,000 acres. The National Park consists of about 520,000 acres in Tennessee and North Carolina.
“Those fires were much larger than what we saw in Gatlinburg,” Grissino-Mayer said.
“We never win the battle against wildfire. Usually, it’s rain that puts it out.”
If not for the rain falling about 3 a.m. Nov. 29, Grissino-Mayer said the wildfires would have consumed all of Gatlinburg, “would have gone through Pigeon Forge and probably would have gotten Dollywood.”
The professor is amazed when he hears someone comment the Gatlinburg wildfires were a “one in a 100-year event.”
“Residents say, ‘Well, we got that out of the way, so we don’t have to worry about a fire for a while,’” he said.
Yes, you do have to worry about fire again, Grissino-Mayer said.
‘GATLINBURG MADE TO BURN’
The professor has been telling people who live around forested areas about various safety programs that can protect property and keep them alive. The densest population of people living near forests in the United States, he said, is in East Tennessee. That area where communities meet forests is designated the Wildland-Urban Interface.
“The first time I mentioned the WildlandUrban Interface to people in Gatlinburg, they didn’t know what I was talking about, and they’re living it,” he said.
Grissino-Mayer visited neighborhoods in Pigeon Forge to see how they rated with building construction issued by the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code.
“Every neighborhood I went to failed,” he said.
Railroad ties soaked in creosote to preserve the wood are a common material for terracing hillsides in Gatlinburg and Sevier County. Grisson-Mayer said firefighters told him those railroad ties were a major issue in trying to extinguish flames.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2008 issued “A Home Builder’s Guide to Construction in Wildfire Zones,” but local governments haven’t incorporated the recommendations into building codes.
“Gatlinburg was made to burn,” Grissino-Mayer said. “People see beautiful log cabins. I don’t see wood, I see fuel.”
Gatlinburg already has issued 200 building permits for Chalet Village that allow the same construction that fed wildfire flames, he said.
“Codes have to change, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” the professor said.
“I don’t think they’re going to change anything, I really don’t.”