This is a huge story that wasn't picked up by the national media for quite a while. Thankfully, Russia Today was right on top of it. It was brought to my attention someone I know in the area. I hope everyone gets out in time and has insurance. It looks really bad.
I was looking at that last night. They had a live feed about the fires on Youtube. It sounded like the rain was helping out , but probably making it harder for the people trying to evacuate from the area, too. Some of the information said that they have arrested arsonists; so it sounds like the forest fires were deliberately started, as has happened in several of the other big forest fires in the western part of the country that ended up burning so much land and homes.
Strangely enough, Russia Today has become one of the more accurate sources of news. I don't like that to be the case, but it seems to be. During the period after 9/11 and the first years of the Iraq-Afghanistan wars, the English-language version of Xinhua, a Chinese newspaper, was the best source for information regarding the war. Our daughter was a sergeant in the Army at the time, yet there were a few times when we learned about US troop movements before she knew about them. She would say, "No, we're not," only to find out sometimes days later that the Chinese newspaper was right. Obviously, the US news media was simply publishing what they were given, and the US government wan't giving us all the information. They may still be an accurate source of news but I have gotten out of the habit of checking Xinhua on a regular basis. Don't misunderstand me. I am all in favor of the US government keeping information about troop movements secret, but I am not so much in favor of the media colluding with the government to suppress information that they have. As for Gatlinburg, long after I started hearing news about the fires, none of the radio news reports were giving any idea as to what started the fires. It was as if they weren't even curious.
I saw that @Babs Hunt. I hope they're still o.k. I saw that 3 or 4 bodies had been found (not at the aquarium), but I don't know the details yet. I haven't even been on Twitter, which is my main source on the fires. Last I heard, Dollywood was o.k., but although the rain had helped, it apparently stopped, or didn't do enough, because the fires were still going strong. From what I've seen there have been several people arrested for arson. I believe they were all white males, probably 20s or 30s, so I don't know if there was any motivation other than wanting attention, or perhaps spite. From what I understand, a lot of the area consists of luxury homes and resorts, so it could be that arsonists resented the fact that these people had things they (arsonists) didn't, or perhaps one or more was set for insurance purposes. I'll post more information and links when I get them, if someone else hasn't by then.
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/fire...um-thousands-of-animals-left-behind/357623054 Animals are all okay @Diane Lane. http://thecount.com/2016/11/29/did-...tlinburg-dolly-parton-tennessee-evacuated-tn/ Dollywood spared too.
Oh good, you shared this Gary, this was horrible, truly felt I was in that fire with them. Amazing video, yes, the language is bad, but I gotta admit, I'd been saying the same things for sure. Thanks for sharing it Gary. I hope everyone prays for Tennessee today. This is something you would never see on the news.
Glad to hear this, unfortunately, there was probably a lot of wildlife lost Horrible thing, I sit here in my cozy home, and see others losing everything
we had a fire problem here last night a gas pipeline split causing a large fire close to KCI airport. we could see the intense glow in the sky that flickered with the flames. thank god they got it out by shutting off the valve in another county. this fire was unaccessible to fire trucks.
As many things I've heard people say that were so evil, I am still shocked to see someone say something like this
I would have been so frightened Gary, we sure have some wonderful heros that go in and fight these things. Unsung heros every day.