The deadly wildfires that engulfed two Tennessee tourist towns leading into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park left at least seven dead and hundreds of buildings damaged or destroyed, officials said late Wednesday as the terrible toll of the fires began to take focus.
At least 53 people were treated for injuries at hospitals, though their conditions were not known. Massive walls of flames spread down the mountains into Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge on Monday with shocking speed, said those who fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. The fires are estimated to have damaged or destroyed more than 700 homes and businesses — nearly half of them in the city of Gatlinburg.
Park Superintendent Cassius Cash said late Wednesday afternoon that the fire was “likely to be human-caused.”
There were numerous new blazes overnight, according to officials — most of them brush fires. First responders were also struggling with small mudslides and rock slides as the foliage that once held the ground in place has burned away.
Park officials estimated that about 16,000 acres had burned by Wednesday afternoon.
Search-and-rescue efforts were ongoing on Wednesday in the charred, smoke-choked mountains, but some areas throughout Sevier County remained unreachable, authorities said. The Red Cross launched a service to try to reunite those who were separated; the number of those missing is not clear.
“We’re going to be OK,” Gatlinburg Mayor Mike Werner reassured locals repeatedly throughout the news conference Wednesday morning.
Despite widespread chaos, officials said the previous 24 hours were not without some good news. Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said rescuers were able to free three people who became trapped in an elevator at Westgate Resort in Gatlinburg after it lost power during a fire.
The trapped occupants. who were able to reach rescuers using their cell phones, were like many in the region who narrowly escaped tragedy.
Linda Monholland ended her shift at the Park View Inn around 9 p.m., stepped outside the Gatlinburg, Tenn., resort and found herself surrounded by high flames. For 20 minutes Monday night, she and five colleagues struggled through the thick smoke and blowing embers of a sudden and deadly wildfire until they found safety in a tourist trolley turned evacuation shuttle.
“It was like we were in hell; hell opened up,” Monholland said on Tuesday.