Gatlinburg After The Fires

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a little town in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee is best known for being a quaint, country tourist spot that is loved by Southerners as much as those from the North. It’s an extremely picturesque town, with beautiful mountain views and plenty of stuff to do. There’s enough to keep your family occupied while enjoying the summer months, the incredible vista of fall, and even the winter in Gatlinburg. However, in November of 2016, wildfires raged through the area destroying homes and businesses. The landscape was forever changed in Gatlinburg after the fires.

These fires were started by matches and became the destructive force that ravaged the area with the assistance of heavy winds. Destroying over 2500 properties and killing fourteen people, the fires of Gatlinburg broke the spirits of business owners and homeowners alike.
Gatlinburg has locals, who frequent the town’s many establishments, but that doesn’t mean that those establishments don’t also depend on the income from tourist traffic. As a business owner, any additional income can be helpful and tourist season provides a great deal of that. The wildfires paralyzed part of the town of Gatlinburg for quite awhile until it was considered safe to enter the area and again as the people waited to rebuild their homes, if they could.

Where Are They Now?

Now, nearly a year and a half later, Gatlinburg is back on their feet with a booming tourist season approaching, but that doesn’t mean they have forgotten about the fourteen people lost in the fires or the way discarded matches tore away many of the things that mattered to them for a very long time. Downtown Gatlinburg was mostly untouched, but publication dollars in excess of a million dollars were spent to make that knowledge public.

What was supposed to be a 30 million dollar amusement park of sorts had barely broken ground when the fires raged through the area, putting the plans to rest for quite some time. The owner decided to go ahead with his plans, and has even left a space for a memorial, where guests can remember the gruesome fire ripping through the beautiful land.

As of right now, Gatlinburg is getting back on its feet as they expect several huge business additions that should increase tourist traffic greatly. There are hopes that the increase of travel to nearby states, such as Kentucky, can help increase visibility to tourists from outside the area. They’re also optimistic that the wildfire was an isolated incident; an event that happened only because of a natural trifecta that merged hurricane strength winds, months of no rainfall, and careless teenagers. However, the parks service disagrees.

The National Parks Service Report claims that Gatlinburg is at a consistent risk for this type of fire on a regular basis as a result of climate change. While the nature is part of the reason people travel to Gatlinburg, the Parks Service claims that Gatlinburg is clearly vulnerable to more wildfires.

Gatlinburg residents and business owners, who have returned (or never left), are slightly less nervous than the parks department however, as they encourage more moonshine tastings, candy sampling, and are helping to foster tourism daily. While they seem to have bounced back in record time, is Gatlinburg simply ignoring the inevitability of another serious wildfire or was it simply a stroke of bad luck that caused the fire’s severity?