This place has been the precious of my world travels, childhood, and young adult memories. My prayers to those families and friends from my past. My hopes are for your endearing future. Those as fortunate as me to see your amazing wonders.
I was there the day before on a school field trip from southwest Virginia on Monday and either they discovered it Monday night or Tuesday I can’t remember which but I know we kept asking what is that smoke smell and people just kept saying well the mountains on fire somewhere like it didn’t matter
Just got back from a week up in Gatlinburg on Ski Mountain Rd. None of this stuff is there that i noticed. Looks to have all been torn down or rebuilt or w/e. I didn't really notice any vacant buildings. What i did notice was a lot of dead trees. Dead trees and brush everywhere. Standing dead. Fallen Dead. All fuel for the next one i guess.
Having been born, raised and live here (54 years), the fires were devastating. Our home was spared but we had severe wind and smoke damage. The condos shown burned out was the Highlands. They are on Cambell Lead Rd. Further down were 2 private homes, the Bolze mansion, Cottage gardens and the Lodge at Buckberry Creek, all gone now. Before the condos was Greystone Heights. Most of those homes including the castle and the Hattie Ogle home are all gone. Ski Mtn. road had damage to the half way point which is the turn onto Wiley Oakley Dr. Cambell Lead was the next ridge over. Downtown received very little damage with a few exceptions. The outskirts all around downtown got it the worst
I've been trying to find out since this happened if a chalet called Woody Hill on Ski Mountain Rd that is rented out through Amazing Views of the Smokies made it through the fire. That place holds some great memories for me. I can't really find any info on it.
We have to drive by many of those properties on our way up to High Chalet condos. It was gut wrenching to see so many of these places burned to mere concrete shells after seeing them for so many years.
I used to live in ski mountain rd a long time ago and is very hard to see all of this,a friend of mine name Brent use to live way up this road I wonder if they ok...
As far as I know the names of the two boys haven't been released but I don't see how their identities can be kept indefinitely from the public even if that information isn't given out by the authorities. I'm not familiar with the term "aggravated arson" or what it involves but I think that jail time and maybe some kind of restitution work should go with it though I want to be clear that I don't support or wish any harm or unlawful reaction to the arsonists, their families, or their own property.
