Oak Ridge Today

Air quality alert in effect until midnight Saturday

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Haze from wildfires in western states and Canada obscures the Cumberland Mountains north of Oak Ridge in this view from Pine Ridge last week, on Wednesday, July 21, 2021. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

An air quality alert is in effect until midnight as smoke from wildfires in western states and Canada continues to blow through the region. The smoke also affected air quality in the region last week.

On Friday, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issued a code orange air quality alert for fine particulate matter, including in the Knoxville metropolitan area. The air quality alert includes Anderson County. It went into effect at midnight Friday and continues until midnight Saturday.

The orange alert means the air is unhealthy for people in sensitive groups, according to AirNow.gov. This includes people with heart or lung disease, older adults, children, and teenagers. They should choose less strenuous activities, like walking instead of running, so they don’t breathe as hard. They should also shorten the amount of time they are active outdoors, and postpone outdoor activities if possible to when the air quality is better. Everyone else can enjoy outdoor activities, AirNow.gov said.

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Smoke from wildfires in West, Canada causes haze in Oak Ridge

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Haze obscures the mountains north of Oak Ridge in this view from Pine Ridge on Wednesday evening, July 21, 2021. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Smoke from enormous wildfires in the western United States and Canada is causing haze in Oak Ridge and across the eastern United States, and affecting air quality in many regions.

This map shows the locations of fires in the northwest United States and Canada, the smoke plume spreading across North America, and air quality indices. (Map by AirNow.gov via National Weather Service in Morristown)

On Thursday, CBS News reported that there are wildfires burning in 13 states, and 83 large fires have burned close to 1.3 million acres. The largest fire, the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, was burning more than 476 square miles, an area about the size of Los Angeles and three times the size of Detroit.

Smoke from the wildfires is blowing into Canada and then south around the Great Lakes and east to the East Coast, according to a map posted by AirNow.gov and shared by the National Weather Service in Morristown.

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UT professor to discuss last year’s wildfires on April 13 in Oak Ridge

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Henri Grissino-Mayer

Henri Grissino-Mayer

A University of Tennessee professor will discuss the devastating wildfires in the Southeast in 2016 during a talk in Oak Ridge on April 13.

The featured speaker will be UT professor Henri Grissino-Mayer, a renowned expert on ecosystems, a press release said. He will address the devastating fires, their cause, and what the future may be, a press release said.

The talk is titled “The 2016 Wildfires in the Southeastern U.S.: What Comes Next after Gatlinburg?” It will be presented by the University of Tennessee Arboretum Society.

It’s scheduled from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 13, in the UT Arboretum Auditorium at 901 South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge.

Grissino-Mayer is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Science. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge spent about $22,000 responding to Sevier County fires

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Oak Ridge Fire Department mitchell-rd Sevier County

People being removed from vehicles while Oak Ridge Fire Department crews helped respond to the Sevier County wildfire starting Monday, Nov. 29, 2016. (Photo by Oak Ridge Fire Chief Darryl Kerley)

 

Oak Ridge spent about $22,000 responding to the wildfires in Sevier County in November and December, but the city doesn’t want to seek reimbursement.

The Oak Ridge Fire Department sent fire crews to Pigeon Forge on November 28 and 29, and then to Gatlinburg from November 30 to December 4. The ORFD provided structural and wildfire suppression, and search and rescue services in Sevier County, Oak Ridge Fire Chief Darryl Kerley said in a February 6 memo to Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson.

Besides the emergency services that were provided, four employees of the Oak Ridge Fire Department provided incident management services in the Gatlinburg fire command center, serving as logistics and communications specialist on the state Incident Management Team, Kerley said.

He said it cost about $22,000 in staff, equipment, and fuel to respond to the mutual aid request for the historically large, deadly Sevier County fires, which were started by the Chimney Top 2 fire and fueled by high winds, dry conditions, and downed power lines. The money for the city’s firefighting aid came out of the Oak Ridge Fire Department salary, overtime, and fuel budget. [Read more…]

Gatlinburg fires: Andersonville fire chief describes elevator rescue, driving through ‘gates of hell’

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The Andersonville Volunteer Fire Department helped rescue two people trapped in an elevator in a burning building at Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort, pictured above, in Gatlinburg during the wildfires on Monday, Nov. 28, 2016. (Photo via Roane State Community College)

 

Editor’s note: Many fire departments and emergency workers responded to help fight the wildfires and perform search and rescue during the deadly forest fires that burned areas around Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge on Monday, November 28. Here are stories from two Anderson County rescuers who responded to the Gatlinburg fires, as reported by Roane State Community College.

‘We made our way through what looked like the gates of hell’

By Matthew R. Burrell

On the night of Monday, November 28, various Anderson County fire departments were asked to respond on mutual aid calls to the City of Gatlinburg. Of those departments, Andersonville responded with a crew of three and one pumper.

Once we arrived at the meeting point, we were sent to Pittman Center for staging. On our way to our assigned location, there were many thoughts of the unknown. We were bouncing several scenarios off of each other—from “what are we going to do to pass time if all we do is sit in the parking lot,” to how crazy it could possibly be and what we might encounter.

When we first responded, I made contact with the Gatlinburg Fire Department chief, and the intensity in his voice told me that it was bad. But once we hit the spur, we realized just how bad it was. We made our way through what looked like the gates of hell and then entered the city. There was a constant orange glow everywhere you looked. We were amazed at the devastation and at how many buildings were on fire. [Read more…]

TBI: Two juveniles charged with arson in deadly Sevier County wildfires

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Oak Ridge Fire Department mitchell-rd Sevier County

People being removed from vehicles while Oak Ridge Fire Department crews helped respond to the Sevier County wildfire starting Monday, Nov. 29, 2016. (Photo by Oak Ridge Fire Chief Darryl Kerley)

 

Note: This story was updated at 10 a.m. Dec. 8.

Two juveniles have been charged with aggravated arson in connection with the deadly wildfires in Sevier County last week, authorities said Wednesday. The fires burned more than 17,000 acres around the Chimney Tops trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Wears Valley. Fourteen people died, 176 were injured or made ill, and more than 2,400 structures were damaged or destroyed.

Local fire departments and law enforcement agencies responded to help fight the fires and provide search and rescue help, among other aid. The fire in the park, the most heavily visited in the United States, and the nearby tourist towns has been described as the largest in Tennessee in at least 100 years.

The charges announced Wednesday afternoon were filed after an investigation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation; National Park Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF; and the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office. [Read more…]

Air quality forecast for Tuesday: Unhealthy for sensitive groups

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The air quality forecast for Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016. Yellow areas are moderate, orange areas are unhealthy for sensitive groups, and red is unhealthy. (Image courtesy AirNow.gov)

 

The air quality forecast for the Knoxville area on Tuesday is again unhealthy for sensitive groups.

The air quality in the Knoxville area at about 8 a.m. Tuesday was unhealthy due to particle pollution, according to AirNow.gov. That means people with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion. Everyone else should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion.

Unhealthy for sensitive groups means the general public is not likely to be affected, but people with lung disease, older adults, and children are at a greater risk from exposure to ozone, while people with heart and lung disease, older adults, and children are at greater risk from the presence of particles in the air.

The poor air quality in the the Knoxville and Chattanooga metropolitan areas, as well as in the Great Smoky Mountains, is due to smoke from wildfires.

“Everyone should limit prolonged outdoor exertion,” the National Weather Service in Morristown said Tuesday. [Read more…]

Controlled burns on Oak Ridge Reservation through April

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office will have a series of controlled burns of grassland areas on parts of the Oak Ridge Reservation during February, March, and April.

The prescribed burning at the East Tennessee Technology Park and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was scheduled to start this week.

Weather permitting, the controlled burns are scheduled to take place on: [Read more…]

USAF releases report on plane crash that killed Clinton native

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The U.S. Air Force has released the findings of its investigation into the crash of a C-130 Hercules air tanker on July 1 in South Dakota that killed four members of the North Carolina Air National Guard, including a Clinton native.

Lt. Col. Paul Mikael and three other crew members aboard the plane died while fighting wildfires in the Black Hills. The accident report released Wednesday says that the crew misjudged weather and flew into a wind burst that forced their plane down, according to WSYH Radio in Clinton.

The report was issued by the Air Force Air Mobility Command, and it said the crash occurred because the crew had made an “inadequate assessment” of the weather before flying into a microburst, a small and intense thunderstorm, WYSH said.

The report also said two other plane crews in the area failed to communicate critical information to Mikael and his crew, which also received conflicting information on how close they could fly to a thunderstorm, WYSH said. Two other crew members in the rear of the plane were injured but survived the crash.

The North Carolina Air National Guard released a statement Wednesday that said they will study the investigation’s conclusions to prevent future incidents, WYSH said.

The radio station said Clinton has paid tribute to Mikael’s service through remembrances, resolutions and renaming the swimming pool at the Clinton Community Center in his honor.

WYSH used information from the Air Force Times in its story. For more information, visit http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2012/11/airforce-c130-crash-report-111412w.

This story brought to you through an agreement between Oak Ridge Today and WYSH. See more local news headlines on the WYSH website at http://www.wyshradio.com/local_news.html.

Fire Department begins wildfire campaign next week

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As more homes are built in wooded areas, the threat posed by wildfires increases, so the Oak Ridge Fire Department has launched a new fire prevention program called Fire Wise.

Announced by Fire Chief Darryl Kerley on Friday, the new program is an effort to make residents more aware of the potential for a wild land fire.

Starting next week, Oak Ridge Fire Department employees will begin distributing Fire Wise materials via a door-to-door campaign to homes located off of Scenic Drive on the east end of town and Whippoorwill Drive on the west end.

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