Fires at Great Smoky Mountains/Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge

[dcopas78]

I would like to offer my prayers to anyone on the forum that lives there or has friends in the area, and all of those involved in the containment of the fires. I spend at least a week a year in the Smoky Mountains and it breaks my heart to see this happening. There are some wonderful people in the area and I've made several friends in the fly shops and on the mountain streams over the years. I pray that the rain they are forecasting for today puts out the fires!

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/28/us/southern-fires-gatlinburg-smokies/index.html

 

[Southern Elk]

This is such a shame. We love to visit the area. From what I've read, it may never be the same. Prayers for all who are affected.

 

[LCH]

It's a favorite vacation spot for us as well. From what I've been reading, a big part of that area has been completely destroyed, hundreds of buildings, etc. Thankfully, no reported fatalities yet.

 

[Tikka06]

One of my best friends is on the ground up there. Its as bad as you are hearing and probably worse to be honest. They said the winds got up to 65-70mph last night. He did say he thought Ober G-burg was still standing and so was the Park Vista hotel but other than that who knows. Tri-State mutual aid has been activated and crews are coming in from everywhere. Its not over yet. There is no telling how many cabins were lost and it wasn't clear how far it got into town.

 

[Tikka06]

14,000 evacuated as of 10am today.

 

[joelhunter]

So sad. The area is such a wonderful place. Hopefully some rain finds its way to the area soon and helps.

 

[El Jason]

So maybe this is a stupid question, but is it normal for all of those trees to still be carrying their leaves at this time of the year?

 

[dcopas78]

So maybe this is a stupid question, but is it normal for all of those trees to still be carrying their leaves at this time of the year?

The trees here in southern Ohio have carried there leaves way longer than they normally do, or at least it seems like they have. We didn't get the first heavy frost until just a few weeks ago, which is kind of abnormal. It has been unusually warm, that is for sure.

 

[1_pointer]

I hope everyone can stay safe and I do feel for those that have lost homes, businesses, etc. It's a pretty good reminder that not all fire adapted ecosystems occur out "west".

I wasn't planning on it, but I will probably make at least a weekend run down there this spring and hopefully years to come to watch the regeneration as I'm a plant nerd.

 

[Southern Elk]

So maybe this is a stupid question, but is it normal for all of those trees to still be carrying their leaves at this time of the year?

Most of the trees here in central MS still have their leaves. East TN should be a few weeks ahead of us. It's likely that some have fallen and some haven't. It's incredibly dry here. My grandfather said it's the worst drought that he's ever seen. Until the rain that we got yesterday, we hadn't had significant rainfall since August.

 

[JDH]

I used to visit there quite a bit. Sad to see. Our trees in central Indiana seemed to hold there leaves for longer this year. I head this morning that Park Vista was burned.

I hope everyone can stay safe and I do feel for those that have lost homes, businesses, etc. It's a pretty good reminder that not all fire adapted ecosystems occur out "west".

I wasn't planning on it, but I will probably make at least a weekend run down there this spring and hopefully years to come to watch the regeneration as I'm a plant nerd.

Since I'm not a plant nerd I was surprised that the leaves stayed in the trees as long as they did here. I really expected photoperiod to have a bigger effect on when trees dropped their leaves.

 

[Southern Elk]

Here's a picture taken out my back door this morning to show how many leaves are still on the trees here in Central Mississippi. This is after 2 rounds of severe thunderstorms rolled through and blew a bunch of them off. I'm sure dry leaves played a roll in the fire along with the drought, but they are reporting 80 mph winds during the fire. There was no way to control that fire.