Wildfire in Cocke County, Carolina has been Tamed in Multiple Ways

A few days ago, a devastating forest fire in Cocke County, Tennessee, had burnt over 1,500 acres of forest. It has prompted the Tennessee Department of Transportation to close down route U.S. 25/70. Many burning trees had fallen down on the road continuously during the fire that happened in the late evening. Different methods to take down the wildfire have been undertaken, including manual extinguishing, calling in firefighters as well as a helicopter.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation reported that there was a huge fire burning in the Carolina forest late in the evening. They assumed it was because of the long dry season and many dry trees frequently causing friction to each other, with the potential for huge fires to occur.

Besides being the second forest fire to erupt in Cocke County this season, another fire in Hyde County, dubbed the Whipping Creek Fire has also been razing the region. Currently, the wildfires have grown to over 14,000 acres of damage 

Over the past days, firefighters have been working on the calamity. Officials reported that there were no buildings or road structures damaged. Unfortunately, the Cocke County fire has burnt about 60% of the forest itself. At first, 1,000 acres were ravaged. However, the flames continued to spread out from the core of the forest, finally swallowing 4,000 acres in total.

Riva Duncian, the fire management official for National Forests in North Carolina said, "The public is an important partner in fire prevention... Right now, with fire danger at critical levels, we are urging the public to use common sense when it comes to outdoor burning," pertaining not only to North Carolina forest fires.

"It has been a very dry spring so the vegetation has not greened up enough to have enough moisture, so the fire is carrying through some of these areas," Mary Miller reported with the U.S. Forest Service.

For this accident alone, government had to ask hundreds of firefighters to tame the fire. Additionally, a few helicopters were working from the air to take down the fire at the heart of the forest. TDOT expects that the highways will be back in operation soon, while local officials are still working on what caused the fire.