SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. — Governor Bill Lee said Friday that damage from last week's wildfires in Sevier County will likely total in the "tens of millions of dollars," even as emergency managers work on an assessment to determine whether the region is eligible for federal disaster assistance.
Lee toured the area from the air Friday afternoon and met with first responders and firefighters who battled the wildfire, which burned thousands of acres and hundreds of homes in Wears Valley.
"We saw homes that were burned — completely gone — and that’s heartbreaking to see. We see vast areas of the forest that were burned, particularly the undergrowth in those forested areas," Lee said.
"The thing that was encouraging to me and that was remarkable about what we saw, is that there were tremendous areas of developed property that had clear fire lines that had been established by the firefighting agencies," he said, suggesting the disaster could have been even worse.
County leaders estimate the Wears Valley fire burned 2,498 acres and affected 219 structures. One person was injured, but no one else was hurt. The fire began the morning of March 30 on Hatcher Mountain and was spread by gale-force winds through the night. State forestry officials said the fire was out on Friday.
Emergency managers continue to assess the amount of damage the fires caused as part of an application to the state and federal governments for disaster assistance.
"We have to identify the financial loss within a community," said Emergency Management Director Joe Ayers. "It is very important that we keep very detailed records."
The state must reach an $11.2 million threshold to qualify and ask the president for disaster assistance, he said. His crews measure damage to personal homes, but also the cost of the response — which the governor said included more than 75 different agencies.
"It’s still early and we’re sending a lot of [the] information to TEMA for them to review and begin the process," Ayers said.
Ayers and Lee both said their agencies would examine the response to the Wears Valley fire in after-action reviews to identify possible areas of improvement if a disaster were to hit again. They said lessons from the deadly Gatlinburg Wildfires in 2016 helped the response last week.
"There was much learned from the '16 fire that was used in fighting this fire," Lee said.