Information from WYSH Radio in Clinton
Anderson County investigators are probing the cause of a suspicious Monday night fire that destroyed the house of a man currently serving time in prison on child abuse charges.
The fire at the home on Half Moon Road was reported at around 8 p.m. Monday and extinguished by the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department, which told Anderson County Sheriff’s Department deputies that the house was a total loss.
Information from WYSH Radio in Clinton
A mobile home in Medford was damaged by a fire early Sunday morning.
The mobile home on Beets Valley Road had been unoccupied for at least three years, according to a report filed by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department, and had no power running to it.
A fire that started in a pan of hot oil in a West Outer Drive home Thursday and spread to an artificial plant on top of kitchen cabinets ended when a neighbor dumped baking flour on the plant, extinguishing the flames, a fire report said.
A West Outer Drive man told firefighters he had been heating oil to cook frozen chicken nuggets earlier in the day and left the oil unattended, an Oak Ridge Fire Department report said. When the man returned to the stove, the oil was on fire.
The man picked up the pot and headed for the front door but decided the fire in the pan was too large, the report said. So, he placed the pan in the sink and turned on the water.
Information from WYSH Radio
Investigators are still working to determine what started a fire that did some damage to the Oliver Springs High School football field house.
According to Oliver Springs Assistant Chief Justin Bailey, the fire happened sometime over the weekend. The coaching staff discovered the damage on Monday.
The area of Redoak Mountain east of New River Highway in northern Anderson County, where a 150-acre fire was reported Sunday afternoon. Anderson County is on the south side of the black Anderson-Campbell county line. (Image courtesy of Nathan M. Waters/Tennessee Division of Forestry)
Tennessee firefighters reported a new fire on Redoak Mountain on the Anderson-Campbell county line early Sunday afternoon.
The fire was initially estimated at about 100 acres, and firefighters were responding from the Tennessee Division of Forestry and Claiborne County. There are several houses on the Anderson County side, said Nathan M. Waters, Tennessee Forestry Division assistant district forester.
The fire is off Highway 116, which is also known as New River Highway in northern Anderson County. It’s in steep, strip-mining country west of Briceville and in an area close to the Graves Gap fire that was reported as a 100-acre fire on Thanksgiving but grew to 375 acres on Friday.
The large mountaintop fire near New River Highway west of Briceville was mostly out Saturday afternoon, but flames are flaring again on Walden Ridge in northern Anderson County, a state official said.
Meanwhile, firefighters were battling a 1,000-acre blaze in Campbell County. Despite fires across several counties in upper East Tennessee in the past week, though, no structures or homes have been damaged, according to the Tennessee Division of Forestry in Knoxville.
Assistant District Forester Nathan M. Waters said it wasn’t clear what caused the new fire at Walden Ridge. There were several possibilities. The fire had been considered mostly out on Friday, but it could have restarted, jumped control lines, or been reset. State officials suspect arson as the original cause of the 225-acre fire, which started Tuesday at Walden Ridge Road. That’s just north of Dutch Valley Road at Sulphur Springs Road.
Arson was also suspected at the fire near New River Highway at Graves Gap. It was first reported as a 100-acre blaze on Thursday but, fueled by winds, grew to 375 acres on Friday. It’s on a mountain east of New River Highway, also known as Highway 116, between Briceville and Rosedale.
State and local firefighters used “back fires” to control a mountaintop blaze near New River Highway on Friday. State officials suspect the fire, which grew to 375 acres, was started by arson.
GRAVES GAP—Driven by wind, a mountaintop fire that started as a 100-acre blaze in northern Anderson County on Thursday grew to 375 acres Friday, authorities said.
State firefighters suspect the fire at Graves Gap on New River Highway west of Briceville was started by arson, spokesman Nathan M. Waters said. Waters is assistant district forester for the Tennessee Division of Forestry in Knoxville.
Local and state firefighters battled the mountaintop blaze by setting up control lines, using hand tools and two bulldozers to clear away brush and set “back fires,” essentially fighting “fire with fire.”
Early Friday night, Waters said firefighters had left and plan to return to the blaze on Saturday. Firefighters from the Tennessee Division of Forestry have been assisted by volunteers from Marlow, Briceville, and Sevier County.
State officials suspect arson was the cause of a 225-acre fire that started on Walden Ridge in northern Anderson County on Tuesday night. Firefighters battled the blaze by building control lines around it—”fighting fire with fire.”
WALDEN RIDGE—State officials suspect arson as the cause of a 225-acre fire that started on Walden Ridge in northern Anderson County on Tuesday.
State and local firefighters have used hand tools and two bulldozers to remove fuel from around the fire, and they started a “back fire” to control the blaze. It’s “fighting fire with fire,” said Charles Via, Tennessee Division of Forestry fire resources coordinator in Knoxville.
He said the blaze appears to have started at a dump and spread into the woods. It was on Walden Ridge Road, but officials did not have to close the narrow, gravel road.
Although it’s now a controlled burn, flames are still flaring inside the control lines. Those control lines form what look like a giant ring of fire on Walden Ridge.
“This thing is large, and there is no way to put it out without the help of Mother Nature,” Via said Thursday.
A Tuesday morning fire that damaged two mobile homes off Oliver Springs Highway has been ruled suspicious, and detectives from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department will investigate, a report said.
The fire was reported at two mobile homes at the end of Joann Lane, just west of Anderson Memorial Gardens, at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Anderson County Sgt. Mark C. Hobbs said one of the mobile homes was unoccupied and used to store parts, including doors, cabinets and paint. It is owned by Ben Graves of Ben’s Home Center and located next to a fenced-in storage area.
Graves estimated the home’s value at about $18,000. The value of the items stored inside was unknown, the Sheriff’s Department report said.
There was a second “very old” mobile home behind the first one, and it appeared to be the source of the fire, the report said.
Neither mobile home had power. The report estimated the total damage at about $21,000.
Firefighter Gary Williamson, left, and Capt. Jason Benjamin of the Oak Ridge Fire Department respond to a call for help at a Cove Lane home north of Oliver Springs on Wednesday morning. (Photos by Tom Scott)
No one was injured in a small fire in a two-story home on Cove Lane north of Oliver Springs on Wednesday morning, said Josh Waldo, Oak Ridge assistant fire chief.
Oak Ridge Fire Department responded to the fire at about 11 a.m. Wednesday after receiving a call for help, but the Oliver Springs Fire Department had extinguished the flames by the time Oak Ridge firefighters arrived.
The home is in the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department district, and Marlow firefighters responded, as did emergency responders from several other local agencies.
Waldo said no one was home at the time of the fire, which was in the home’s dining room.
Oak Ridge Assistant Fire Chief Josh Waldo, left, and Oliver Springs Assistant Chief Justin Bailey, right, meet with Oak Ridge firefighters Andrew Murray, left center, and Steven Hales, right center. Murray and Hales started with the Oak Ridge Fire Department on Monday.
No one was injured but five families were displaced after a stove fire in an apartment complex on Royce Circle on Thursday night. (Photos by Tom Scott)
No one was injured in a Thursday night stove fire in an apartment building on Royce Circle, but five families were displaced, authorities said.
An Oak Ridge press release said the third-floor apartment was filled with smoke when firefighters arrived at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday. The fire had been contained by the building’s sprinkler system, and firefighters extinguished it.
“The fire was determined to be accidental due to cooking,” the press release said.
The five families displaced at the Royce Garden Apartments Complex included six adults and eight children. The American Red Cross was called to the scene and provided standard lodging and meal help to the displaced families for the next two days, the press release said.
A total of 20 emergency responders were at the apartment complex for about two hours. They included Oak Ridge firefighters and the Anderson County ambulance service.
A Houston Avenue resident suffered facial burns and was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center on Wednesday with non-life threatening injuries after gasoline was used on a fire in Scarboro, authorities said.
The patient, who was not identified in an Oak Ridge Fire Department report, reportedly suffered second-degree burns from the fire at about 3:20 p.m. Wednesday.
Although he didn’t have more information on this particular incident, Oak Ridge Fire Chief Darryl Kerley said gasoline is generally dangerous to use on fires.
“Gasoline should never be used to start or enhance open burning,” Kerley said Thursday.
He cited a couple of examples to illustrate the dangers.
