Tennessee Emergency Management Agency
James Bassham, Director

Urban Fire
An urban fire is any instance of uncontrolled burning which results in major structural damage to residential, commercial, industrial, institutional or other properties in developed areas. Often, urban fires result from other catastrophes and become a part of the cascading emergencies created by the larger or initial emergency. On the same day as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, October 8th, a fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin burned out of control and spread over the entire town. The area became a conflagration when a windstorm fueled by the spread of several prairie fires fanned the blaze out over a million acres of forest. This fire leaped across the Peshtigo River and trapped both sides of the town of Peshtigo in flames. When the inferno burned out, it had left roughly 1,200 dead. Although the Great San Francisco earthquake is best known for its 7.7 to 7.9 magnitude trembler, the real culprit on April 18, 1906 was a urban fire that caused the city to burn for four days. The earthquake broke natural gas mains and water mains, not only causing blazes everywhere, but preventing the fire department from fighting the fires. More than 500 city blocks and 3,000 lives were lost. Of those who survived, some 225,000 people were without a home.
REFERENCE: http://www.livescience.com/environment/top-10-natural-disasters-1.html

Forest Fire
Forest fire is still a common occurrence in Tennessee, mostly in the heavily forested East Tennessee area. Forest fire threats are typically combined with other hazards, such as droughts or thunderstorms. Each year a fire may involve areas that were once undeveloped timberland, but that are becoming a part of urban sprawl, the suburbs of expanding cities. Homes built in forests are often more distant from fire services and utilities.

Forest fires do not commonly represent a major threat to most of the state of Tennessee. There are occasions where wildfires do get out of control, however, and you will find links to information about these fires from the state Division of Forestry. Additionally, Tennessee is home to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee National Forest, both of which are highly forested and are occasionally subject to significant fires.

The Forestry Division of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is the first line of defense in fighting forest fires and usually eliminate the threats with little additional assistance.

Wildfire
Wildfires are typically limited to fields and meadows in Tennessee and require a rapid response to prevent them from developing into a forest fire. The last major outbreak of wildfire in Tennessee was in 1952 when a serious drought set up conditions for fires which exceeded the resources to fight so many fires at the same time. Over xxx, 000 acres of Tennessee timber land and meadows were burning at the same time, a total of xx fires from Memphis to Strawberry Plains. The fires were finally subdued as rain began to fall xxxx.

Losses totaled some $xx, 000 due to lost crops, timber and businesses.

A cooperative network of emergency management between the states, known as the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) helps assure rapid resources can be obtained to address such wildfires in the future.

Learn more about Fire Threats in Tennessee.