Federal official faults Gatlinburg fire repsonse
GATLINBURG, Tenn. — U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said the National Park Service could have handled some things better while battling the Nov. 28 wildfire and vowed to do what it takes to make sure a devastating fire doesn’t happen again here.
“I’m convinced people participating in it did as good as they could,” he said during a visit to Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Friday. “A lot of people tried to do the right thing. Unfortunately, we lost some lives and had 2,500 structures destroyed.”
“There were a lot of lessons learned. There are things we’ll get better at. Hopefully, we’ll put the right things in place so that it is never repeated.”
The National Park Service, which is under the Department of the Interior, has been preparing a review of how the NPS dealt with the Chimney Top 2 fire, which was first spotted Nov. 23 as a blaze of around an acre but was fanned by gale-force winds on Nov. 28 and spread to cover more than 1,700 acres.
“I have read it [the report] thoroughly,” Zinke said, adding that Sen. Lamar Alexander and key staff members had reviewed it.
“We will release it publicly shortly, but first I also wanted to talk to myself as commander of interior and talk to the front-line folks. Is it correct? Did we capture
the right tone, the right information? Did we leave anything out?
“I also think overall the report was good,” he said.
Zinke mentioned several times in his talk that there was a need for better communication among those dealing with the fire.
“At 9/11, we learned that the different responding agencies couldn’t talk to each other,” he said. “That lesson didn’t go down to the Department of the Interior, so we found out that some of our communication systems [in the fire] could not communicate with the responders who needed it.
“While wildfires are infrequent in the east, this incident showed they can, in fact, occur. We need to look at our plans for evacuation, look at our forest management plans to make sure those areas around structures and city centers are managed slightly different than before.”
He said he also sees a need to maintain the forest better by removing dead trees and other fuel for fires.
‘SOME GOOD THINGS’
All that said, Zinke said he “did see some good things” come from the tragedy.
“I think the community has come together,” he said. “We are rebuilding. There is a lot of mountain toughness here.”
The estimated release date of the review has been pushed back several times, although no official release date was ever set. The NPS at present is not giving a release date beyond saying the review will come out “shortly.”
“We were delayed in reviewing this report because of the criminal charges pending so that we could not by law start our official report until that was cleared,” Zinke said. “We honored that request. We did not start immediately after the fire was out.”
Alexander said he also is awaiting the fire review.
“I am waiting to hear what the secretary has to say, what the report has to say,” he said. “Everyone is focused on the future in Gatlinburg and Sevier County. Whatever we can do as far as lessons learned I think we ought to do that.
“I welcome the report. I appreciate the secretary coming here first and not just putting out the report and answering questions later.”
Zinke and Alexander were in the area as part of a celebration of the National Park Service’s 101st birthday.
They hiked part of the Rainbow Falls Trail, which is undergoing some repair work. They had the work being done explained to them and actually tried their hands at doing some of the repair work themselves.