Park Service's response to Gatlinburg wildfire was delayed far longer than we thought

As people raced from their burning homes to escape the deadly 2016 Gatlinburg wildfire, every second counted.

Documents recently obtained by Knox News show Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials knew things could get serious 15 hours sooner than previously thought.

Some people made their escape in cars or on foot, past flying embers whipped up by a furious wind. But 14 people couldn't outrun the smoke and flames and lost their lives. Their families say they didn't have enough time.

Knox News has reported extensively on what officials in the park knew about the wildfire, which began high on the rocky Chimney Tops mountain before wild winds propelled it down into the popular tourist town of Gatlinburg over a Thanksgiving weekend.

The tranche of documents reviewed by Knox News provides more details about the ferocious blaze and the plodding response that forced thousands into a harrowing flight for their lives.

In a combined statement to Knox News, city and county leaders said the news organization's new findings further bolster the after-action report that largely blames the Park Service's lack of communication with leaders outside the park.

"This information confirms that the contents of the After Action Review report, which the City of Gatlinburg and Sevier County Government commissioned ABS Group to perform, was correct," the statement said.

Predicted winds would be ‘exciting’

On Saturday, Nov. 26, two days before the fire broke outside the park’s boundaries into Gatlinburg, the point man for all firefighting operations in the national park texted an update to the chief ranger.

“The vegetation up high changes to dense rodo, which is a bit wetter and shaded. No line was constructed. The plan is to monitor and hope it does not come that far," Greg Salansky texted Steve Kloster.

"But high winds are predicted for Monday 30-40 mph with rain behind hopefully. So Sunday night and Monday may get exciting.”

By this point, at 5:58 p.m., the National Weather Service had issued a fire weather forecast that included a hazardous outlook for incoming high winds due Monday. Additionally, according to daily briefing documents obtained by Knox News, the park’s fire danger level was listed as “extreme.”

Knowing this, Salansky prepared Kloster for what could lie ahead. Knox News has previously reported similar text messages from Salansky saying the predicted strong winds would make Monday, Nov. 28 “interesting” came at 8:45 a.m. Sunday.

What's new is this text to Kloster that was sent 15 hours earlier.

Extra hours, family members say, could have given those who died in the wildfire enough time to leave before it became impossible to escape.

The messages, taken together, call into question Salansky’s ultimate decision to leave the fire unattended every night, but particularly Sunday night, when it exploded toward residents and visitors in Gatlinburg.

A park spokesperson declined to comment on a list of questions from Knox News, citing pending litigation from the families of survivors. Salansky declined to comment, also citing the pending litigation. Phone calls and text messages sent to numbers associated with Kloster were not returned.

National Park officials’ lack of urgency cost lives

Salansky contacted the Gatlinburg Fire Department only after the local firefighters began asking questions Monday morning about what was happening on Chimney Tops. By that point, the fire had been burning in the park for five days.

The report compiled after the fire and paid for by Gatlinburg and Sevier County put much of the blame on a lack of communication from the National Park Service.

The report said “more timely and accurate communication” from the park would’ve helped the city prepare for the disaster. The report commissioned by Gatlinburg and Sevier County covered the fire from start to finish in contrast to a Park Service report that ends abruptly once the fire left the national park and does not examine what happened after.

“In retrospect, firefighting and evacuation plans would likely have been better directed and accelerated if more accurate fire location data from the GSMNP personnel and NWS (National Weather Service) wind data had been used to model fire progression,” the report said.

Flames to Ski Mountain suggested early

Early Monday, Nov. 28, the day the fire roared out of the park, a park official warned the fire could break out and advance as far as Ski Mountain, shorthand for Ski Mountain Road, which winds west of Gatlinburg to Ober Gatlinburg Ski Resort four miles away.

Park officials never notified the city about the possibility that Ski Mountain could be in danger.

The assessment came in a radio transmission from a park employee to park dispatch around 8:30 a.m., and was detailed in a transcript of communications obtained by Knox News.

It's the earliest known suggestion the fire could threaten Gatlinburg, and though park officials alerted city firefighters three hours later the fire could leave the park, no one shared the assessment that Ski Mountain was at risk.

Eight of the 14 deaths attributed to the wildfire came as people fled in a mad rush on or around Ski Mountain Road, not far from Highway 441, which runs through Gatlinburg.

Lawsuit deals with park’s failure to warn

Whether the park violated its own fire management plan has become the central question of a massive lawsuit.

The Park Service's rules say adjacent communities should be notified of “all planned and unplanned fire management activities that have the potential to impact them.”

Lawyers for the Park Service say blaming the agency for its decisions during an unprecedented natural disaster isn’t fair. They want the lawsuit dropped.

The lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer over what amounted to a paperwork issue, but a three-judge panel on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously reversed his decision in August.

Judge Helene White, who disagreed with Greer, said the entire lawsuit points to the National Park’s failure to warn.

The families’ lawsuit and the Park Service’s own post-fire investigation report “detail a course of events in which the park’s purported failures to monitor and extinguish the fire were interwoven with the park’s communication failures,” her opinion said.

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism. Connect with Tyler by emailing him at tyler.whetstone@knoxnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @tyler_whetstone.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Park Service fire chief texted about danger 15 hours earlier than known