SEVIER COUNTY, Tenn. — Over the past few weeks, many wildfires have popped up in East Tennessee.
Sevier County has a burn ban in place until further notice. However, the Pigeon Forge Fire Department said it's still getting calls about people open-air burning.
"We want to make sure that people please comply with those burn bans because that is the best way that they can help us prevent a wildfire," PFFD Battalion Chief Garrett King said. "Believe it or not, we still have people that are not complying with that. We still have reports daily. Just today, we've had reports in Sevier county of illegal burns—people burning illegally."
King warns that a wildfire can break out at any moment if the public doesn't take precautions. The weather conditions remain dry, despite recent rain.
"People are still continuing to think, 'Well maybe it won't happen to me, you know. Maybe I can burn this small campfire. Maybe I can cook with this charcoal and it's not going to cause a huge deal.' Well, those very instances are what contributes to wildfires," King said.
This month marks seven years since the deadly 2016 Gatlinburg wildfires. King said PFFD learned the right response to those calls.
"Something we learned in 2016—is you have to quickly get on these fires," King said. "When you have an incident of a brush fire in these conditions, you have to hit it fast and you have to hit it hard."
King, a Sevier County native, hopes to never see a fire like those in 2016 ever again.
"This is home to us, this is home. We love our mountains and we do want to protect and we don't ever want to see anything like that happen again," King said.