SEVIER COUNTY, Tenn — Lieutenant Samuel Torres dropped everything when he got the call about the fire on Hatcher Mountain Road and Indigo Lane.
"Being there for my community, helping people out when they need it — that's just part of being a volunteer firefighter," he said. "We went straight up there. It went from bad to worse to really bad."
His team was initially with the group of firefighters who lost their trucks outside the Von Bryan Estate. They were roughly a mile away when they heard something like a jet engine going off.
"When the trucks started burning, we could actually hear it from where we were," Lt. Torres said. "They had us abandon the mountain to regroup and get a better plan."
Just days before, Lt. Torres had gotten a camera for his helmet so he could record what he does in the field and use it for future training exercises.
"We have new people that have never been on a brush fire or structure fire," he said. "We can show them that video so they kind of get an idea of what the conditions can escalate to."
It captured much of what he saw Wednesday night as they tried to protect homes off Coopers Hawk Way near Shagbark.
"We're spraying water on the houses, fighting the flames that are creeping up the backside of it," he said. "As a safety officer, I was walking around and making sure we didn't get overrun, making sure nothing was going to fall on the guys up there."
In most homes, they removed anything extra that could catch fire outside, like rocking chairs, hot tub covers, and firewood. In some places, it was too late.
"We didn't have enough water and there was just too much heat coming off the house to put it out," Lt. Torres said. "There wasn't much we could do for it, so we just focused on saving the other houses."