Rain dampens wildfire outside Great Smoky Mountains

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PIGEON FORGE, TENN. — Heavy rain helped firefighters contain a Tennessee wildfire Monday after flames burned nearly 60 rental cabins in a resort area outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The fire spread across about 160 acres and forced up to 200 people who had been staying in cabins in the area to evacuate.

At the height of the fire, about 100 firefighters from about 30 fire departments battled the blaze that was reported Sunday afternoon, said Ben Bryson, a fire resources coordinator with the Tennessee Division of Forestry.

Firefighters had the fire contained Monday morning, but flames broke through the lines early Monday afternoon before rains from a passing storm system began dousing the flames.

Fire officials had worried earlier that wind-whipped flames might jump a ridgeline and threaten Pigeon Forge, a popular tourism destination that’s home to country star Dolly Parton’s amusement park, Dollywood.

The National Guard sent in helicopters to scoop up water from a nearby lake to air drop on the fire. But then the series of downpours moved in, dropping more water than the helicopters could.

“We had about three downpours that allowed them to get the fire back under control,” said Dean Flener, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Flener said there had been two minor injuries but no deaths. Most firefighters were being pulled back though a small crew was to remain on duty during the night to make sure the blaze didn’t start growing again, he said.

Officials have not said what caused the fire.

John Helt was cleaning a cabin Sunday afternoon in Black Bear Ridge Resort when someone alerted him to the spreading fire, he told The Knoxville News Sentinel.

“I went running down there, and I noticed the fire started on the porch where there was a hot tub. I found out (the cabin) was empty.”

Helt said he ran through the area knocking on cabin doors to alert people to the fire, running past cabins in flames.

“I don’t ever want to see nothing like that ever again,” Helt said. “The flames were so hot I nearly passed out from the heat.”

Fall into fun: Sites, sounds, and seafood punctuate autumn events throughout …

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What: 2nd annual High Hampton Apple Festival

Where: Cashiers, N.C.

When: 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Oct. 7

Details: Celebrate the Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady, Honey Crisp, McIntosh — and even more varieties of apples — at High Hampton Inn’s 2nd annual Apple Festival. The free, day-long event, which is open to the public, is a salute to fall’s favorite fruit with a bounty of apple delicacies, live music and artistic crafts.

The festival will feature homemade apple cider, apple ice cream, apple cakes and muffins, and other treats prepared by High Hampton Inn Chef Sean Ruddy, as well as the growers. There also will be artwork available to purchase including hand-carved bowls, table runners, tote bags and boxes made of domestically-grown wood.

Information: highhamptoninn.com

Halloween and harvest

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What: “Blowing Screams Farm”

Where: Blowing Springs Farm, Flintstone, Ga. (outside of Chattanooga)

When: Opened Saturday and will open every Friday and Saturday night in October

Details: “Blowing Screams Farm” is back in its most horrifying form as the Chattanooga area’s premiere outdoor haunt, featuring the Forest of Fear and GhostRide.

A mysterious group is taking control of Blowing Springs Farm and conducting their hideous experiments in the Forest of Fear. Get up-close and personal with subjects of these experiments in their unnatural habitat in GhostRide. Due to the more extreme nature of these haunts, parental discretion is advised.

Information: Visit blowingscreamsfarm.com or www.facebook.com/RockCityHaunt

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What: Rock City’s Enchanted MAiZE

Where: Blowing Springs Farm

When: Every Thursday through Sunday until Oct. 28

Details: Rock City’s Enchanted MAiZE is listed as one of the Southeast Tourism Society’s (STS) top 20 events, and is also a past winner of the STS Shining Example Award.

Welch 25th

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Terry and Tammy Welch distinguished their 25th marriage anniversary on Aug 15, 2012. They distinguished this special arise by holding a outing to Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
They are a relatives of Tyler Welch and Todd Welch, both of Muncie, Indiana.
Terry is a late Pressman from The Star Press and now works for B R Delivery and Tammy is a Teacher’s Aide for Muncie Community Schools and works during Sutton Elementary.

Sun sets on state specialty tags – Asheville Citizen

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Safety issue?

Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, said that regardless of the DOT report’s conclusions, he would not take up the bill, during this short session or in the next regular session.

“These (specialty plates) serve a good charitable cause, and we applaud that, and we believe it has some good merit,” said Rucho, who is co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee. “But if most license plates can’t be read by the cameras, you have to pay more money for a person to come out and manually read the plates, rather than the automated system.

“The second part of this is law enforcement officials have told us it’s a challenge for them to do their jobs safely and effectively.”

The increase in the number of full-color specialty plates — there are now about 40 — has made the job of law enforcement across the state more difficult, said George Erwin Jr., executive director of the N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police.

“A lot of plates, you can’t make them out,” Erwin said. “We’re not against the specialty plates, but there has to be some uniformity.”

Erwin said police chiefs do not support HB 1035 and are in favor of allowing the full-color plates to expire in 2015, then returning all plates to the “First in Flight,” white background, with specialty plates all having a small, uniform logo, such as the current university alumni plates.

Eddie Caldwell, executive vice president and general counsel for the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association, on Friday said the group’s position was outlined in a letter to Rucho and other legislators in February.

In the letter, the sheriffs recommend “a design template that is readily identifiable by law enforcement officers, reflective lettering and raised block lettering for all specialty plates offered by the DMV.”

Caldwell said they leave the design of a plate to achieve their recommendations up to the DMV.

On Friday, Marge Howell, spokeswoman for the DMV, said the division stands by the readability report released in April.

Ward, of the Parkway Foundation, said switching to the plain-looking plates will cause people to stop buying them and seriously hurt the nonprofits.

The foundation receives about half its funding from the specialty plates revenue.

“To not have the Senate take this home when everyone else is on record of support, I don’t know that the stars would align this way again. It is disconcerting,” Ward said.

“Everyone has supported this design of the white box. When you’ve got bipartisan House support in such a contentious partisan atmosphere, and the Senate will not even let it come to the floor, it’s disgusting.”

Search continues for Smokies assailant – Asheville Citizen

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GATLINBURG, TENN. — Authorities continued their hunt Sunday for a masculine who raped and stabbed a 44-year-old lady on a hiking route in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The plant was walking on Gatlinburg Trail joining a Sugarlands Visitors Center with Gatlinburg when she was pounded Friday. She done her approach to a circuitously highway to dwindle down a visitor, who reported a incident.

A ranger pronounced Sunday there were no new developments in a case.

The lady was airlifted to University of Tennessee Medical Center, where she remained in fast condition over a weekend.

Chief Ranger Clay Jordan pronounced authorities have searched for a think in a area around a route and are focusing their efforts in Gatlinburg with hopes of identifying him.

The think is described as a white masculine of skinny build in his 40s. He is about 5 feet 7 inches high with a organisation cut and skinny mustache. He was wearing black dress pants and a gray T-shirt. Authorities contend he has mixed tattoos, including one on his stomach.

Anyone with information about a box is urged to call a park puncture line during 865-436-9171.

bug threatens Smokies ash trees – Asheville Citizen

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GATLINBURG, TENN. — Biologists with Great Smoky Mountains National Park expect within the next month to start treating ash trees infected with an exotic beetle that has decimated the trees in other parts of the country.

The work will be limited to sections in the Greenbrier area and near the Sugarlands Visitor Center in Tennessee.

Emerald ash borers were found last week on the park’s Tennessee side and almost inevitably will make their way into North Carolina, park officials said.

The half-inch, green beetles have the potential to wipe out the park’s two types of ash trees, green and white ash, biologists say.

The mountain ash, found at high elevations and known for its bright red berries, is not a true ash and won’t be affected.

While chemical and biological treatments can protect individual trees, widespread treatment is difficult because of costs and logistical challenges.

“We know that even in areas where ash trees are widely scattered, the beetles make their way to them,” Smokies spokeswoman Melissa Coburn said. “The potential is there for pretty widespread devastation of ash trees in the park.”

Native to Asia, emerald ash borers were first discovered in the U.S. in 2002 in Michigan and have since spread to 15 states and Canada, killing millions of ash trees.

The arrival of the insects in the Smokies comes on the heels of infestation in the Appalachians and elsewhere of the hemlock-destroying wooly adelgid, another native of Asia.

Ash trees provide food for birds and animals in the form of seeds, and the trees, which often are found along streams, provide shade for mountain waterways and help prevent stream bank erosion, Smokies biologist Glenn Taylor said.

The trees make up 5-10 percent of forest tree species in the area, so they aren’t as dominant as hemlocks.

But forest visitors still will notice their loss, Taylor said.

“I think people will see it, especially in the wetter areas,” he said.

Smokies officials are developing a plan for combating the bugs, but Taylor said biologists likely will start treating infested trees with chemicals soon.

Landmark East Tennessee tyrannise repository to turn drink brewery

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JOHNSON CITY — A landmark tyrannise repository in Johnson City is on lane to be easy and incited into a drink brewery.

The Johnson City Development Authority, that bought a empty CCO Railroad Depot in 2010 in an bid to save it, authorized a sale this month to Sevierville profession and businessman Joe Baker.

Baker told a Johnson City Press (http://bit.ly/JBQldN) that he intends to spin it into a locally themed brewery and restaurant.

Development management officials contend it’s a successful finish to their try to find a private customer who would reconstruct a structure and spin it into a revenue-generating business.

Baker, who also owns a Gatlinburg-based Ole Smoky Distillery business, says that’s accurately what he intends to do.

“Any transformation is going to be good for downtown Johnson City. we consider we’re vehement to try to offer as a matter for a surrounding area and get some good appetite in downtown,” Baker said. “We have a integrate of intensity tenants that are vehement about a prospects. I’m in a business of production strong spirits, and we consider a brewery could work good here in downtown.”

The brewery and concomitant grill are approaching to prominence internal enlightenment and history. Greg Cox, a attorney operative with Baker on a project, pronounced Baker skeleton to reconstruct a exterior, stabilise a structure’s roof and repair adult a landscaping.

“We wish it to be a heart for downtown. We wish people to be means to float their bikes down there on Saturday morning, eat breakfast, have a good time outside, travel to a farmer’s marketplace and indeed spend some time downtown,” he said.

The agreement stipulates that a JCDA get initial right of refusal to squeeze a skill during $5,000 for a year after shutting should Baker confirm to resell a property.

Although management members were in some feud about terms of a contract, house member Philip Cox urged approval.

“We’ve got to take a small bit of this with some faith that these guys are going to do what they contend they’re going to do and they have a lane record that has shown that. They’re a usually ones who have unequivocally had any critical seductiveness in this thing, and we consider it’s an opportunity. If we don’t take advantage of this now and keep obstructing this, we might remove this opportunity,” he said.

Baker pronounced he won’t be a usually one to advantage from a project.

“I wouldn’t wish to be concerned in a plan unless we were going to be means to do good financially both for ourselves though also for a city,” he said.

Blue Ridge, Smoky Mountain writers Ellison, Stepp publish books – Asheville Citizen

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Ellisons collaborate on new book ‘Permanent Camp’

BRYSON CITY — Nature writer and Citizen-Times columnist George Ellison and his wife and collaborator, Elizabeth, have published “Permanent Camp: Poems, Narratives and Renderings from the Smokies” with The History Press.

A book launch event will be at 6:30 p.m. June 8 at City Light Books, 3 E. Jackson St., Sylva.

According to the publisher’s announcement, “The Ellisons have found their own secluded valley in these verdant mountains, crafting permanent camp in which to reflect on their place in the natural world. … (George Ellison’s) poetry speaks to one from the heart of the Smokies, imparting a deep appreciation for nature’s beauty and powers of renewal.”

The poems are accompanied by watercolor and oil paintings and illustrations by Elizabeth Ellison, whose “artwork depicts a variety of landscapes, flora, fauna and even more abstract pieces that express a wealth of feelings and capture the reader’s conscience,” the publisher said.

The Ellisons publish the biweekly “Nature Journal” column in the Citizen-Times Home Garden section. Their book will retail for $21.99.

Stepp to sign ‘Delia’s Place’

Mountains novelist Lin Stepp will be in Western North Carolina for two book signings of her newest title, “Delia’s Place,” the fourth book in her Great Smoky Mountains series.

The contemporary novels are each set in different locations around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

All Stepp’s titles, including “Delia’s Place,” set in Gatlinburg, will be available at the signings.

The first event is 11 a.m.-noon Saturday at Blue Ridge Book, 152 S. Main St., Waynesville. To learn more, call the store at 456-6000.

The second signing will be 2-4 p.m. the same day at the Barnes Noble bookstore in the Asheville Mall.

To learn more, call the store at 296-7334.

To learn more about Stepp and her other works, visit www.linstepp.com.

Classic hikes of the Smokies – Asheville Citizen

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WAYNESVILLE — The Great Smoky Mountains National Park might be the most visited in the country, but Holly Demuth still doesn’t think enough people are enjoying it.

The North Carolina director of the nonprofit Friends of the Smokies, Demuth is on a mission to get people out of their cars as they cruise through the Smokies, really dig into the park’s rich history and experience up-close the land, streams, trails, trees, wildflowers, birds and historic bridges.

A monthly, guided hiking series, called “Classic Hikes of the Smokies,” is intended to entice people to explore the park. The series, which take place on the third Thursday of the month, kicked off in April and runs through November. The second hike, to Hemphill Bald, is today.

“We wanted to give people an opportunity to discover this wonderful hiking resource that is so close, and yet many people don’t know that much about what is there,” Demuth said.

The Smokies, which welcomes more than 9 million visitors a year, encompasses a half-million acres of mostly forested land on the North Carolina-Tennessee border. Some of the entrances, including Cherokee and Cataloochee, are about an hour’s drive from Asheville.

The Friends of the Smokies is a nonprofit park partner that works to raise money to support educational programs, historic preservation projects, conservation of natural and cultural resources, and wildlife research and protection in the Smokies.

“There are many unique trails in North Carolina in the Smokies in that they have such a variety of terrain and history and elevation,” Demuth said. “This series introduced people to the different types of hikes there are in the Smokies.”

Danny leads the way

The hikes are 8-10 miles long and require sturdy legs and at least some experience in hiking or strenuous walking. They are all guided by Asheville hiking guide author Danielle “Danny” Bernstein, who is well-versed in the more than 800 miles of hiking trails in the Smokies.

Last month, Bernstein led a “full house” of 15 hikers on the eight-mile Boogerman Trail through the Cataloochee section of the park, crossing many log bridges, passing stone walls that once marked home sites, and towering tulip poplar and hemlock trees.

Reese Witherspoon’s father indicted of bigamy

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The mom of singer Reese Witherspoon says her father is uneasy and suffers from a celebration problem and other personal issues

And that competence be because he can’t remember marrying another lady during a Jan rite in Gatlinburg.

The Hollywood star’s mother, Mary Elizabeth Witherspoon, who is famous as Betty, filed a lawsuit Tuesday opposite her husband, John Draper Witherspoon, seeking to have his new matrimony to Tricianne Taylor annulled. The lawsuit accuses a dual of bigamy.

Reese Witherspoon’s relatives have been married for 42 years, though her father’s celebration and hoarding problems stirred a integrate to pierce to apart houses in 1996, though they never divorced, according to a lawsuit. The Tennessee Office of Vital Records has no divorce annals for John Witherspoon.

An Apr 22 matrimony proclamation in The Tennessean pronounced John Witherspoon and Taylor married Jan. 14.

“Cowboy boots and yellow roses accented a ambiance of a couple’s Texas heritage,” a paid proclamation read. “The father wore a white linen fit accented with a bullion Parthenon tie, present from a bride.”

John Witherspoon, 70, and Taylor, 60, practical for their matrimony permit in Davidson County on Jan. 11, annals show.

Before that, Taylor and John Witherspoon practical for a matrimony permit in Rutherford County on Jul 6, 2011. It was never returned to a county.

Marriage applications in Tennessee are current for usually 30 days.

Alcohol, hoarding claims

In her lawsuit, Betty Witherspoon pronounced she loves her father and does not wish a divorce. She pronounced he has battled problems with alcohol, hoarding and overspending. He owns during slightest 5 motorcycles, 5 boats and recently bought a black Cadillac.

“When we confronted my husband, he pronounced he didn’t know who Tricianne Taylor was and that he did not remember removing married,” she pronounced in an confirmation filed in court.

When she attempted to confront Taylor, a lady refused to speak to her and did not respond to a minute informing her that John Witherspoon was married and had dual children and 4 grandchildren, according to a affidavit. “But she clearly knows now that she is married to a male who is not divorced,” a confirmation said.