Official: Tennessee Wildfire ‘Likely to Be Human-Caused’

Superintendent of a national park in Tennessee says that humans are likely to have caused the deadly wildfires blazing across the state plus neighboring Georgia and North Carolina.

From the Washington Post:

The deadly wildfires that engulfed two Tennessee tourist towns leading into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park left at least seven dead and hundreds of buildings damaged or destroyed, officials said late Wednesday as the terrible toll of the fires began to take focus.

At least 53 people were treated for injuries at hospitals, though their conditions were not known. Massive walls of flames spread down the mountains into Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge on Monday with shocking speed, said those who fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. The fires are estimated to have damaged or destroyed more than 700 homes and businesses — nearly half of them in the city of Gatlinburg.

Park Superintendent Cassius Cash said late Wednesday afternoon that the fire was “likely to be human-caused.”

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