National Park Service Says Arsonists Set Great Smoky Mountains Wildfire

This article originally appeared on Backpacker

The National Park Service is searching for the suspected arsonists who it says are responsible for lighting a wildfire in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

On November 20, the Rich Mountain Fire ignited on the east side of Great Smoky Mountains amidst a complete fire ban, quickly burning 6 acres due to high winds. An initial investigation by the park service suggested that an unknown person or people lit two fires in the area around 2:30 p.m., shortly before the Rich Mountain Fire broke out near the intersection of Old Cades Cove Road and Rich Mountain Road.

The fire caused voluntary evacuations from homes surrounding the park boundary. Authorities called in several engines a helicopter to help suppress the fire.

"Intentionally setting fires in the park, except in designated rings or picnic areas, is always illegal and is extremely dangerous, especially under the extreme weather conditions we saw this week," Boone Vandzura, chief ranger of resource and visitor protection for the park, said in a press release. "We are asking visitors and neighbors for help as we work to identify those responsible for this suspected arson."

NPS officials said that a white truck was spotted at the Rich Mountain Trailhead around the time the fires began. Although the person who owns the vehicle may not be involved in the incident, the park service is asking members of the public for help in locating the occupants of the truck in the hope that they might have seen what happened.

This is not the first time the park service has pointed to arson as the cause of a wildfire in the Smokies. In 2016, police arrested and charged a 17-year-old and 15-year-old boy after a fire in the park spread to Gatlinburg and resulted in 14 deaths, making it the state's most catastrophic blaze in 100 years. However, prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges against the teens, with the district attorney in charge of the case telling a judge that he couldn't prove they were at fault.

While firefighters successfully contained the Rich Mountain Fire two days after it broke out, a fire ban remains in effect for the area due to a heightened fire danger. The use of campfires and stoves without an ignition switch is banned until further notice. Firefighters continued to mop up the fully-contained fire through the holiday weekend to reduce the likelihood of re-ignition.

On the same day the Rich Mountain Fire started, a construction crew working on Lakeview Drive in the park near Bryson City, North Carolina spotted a woman settin several fires in brush alongside the road. According to The Mountaineer, the crew called law enforcement, who arrested her. While neither of the fires caused serious damage, the woman now faces pending state and federal charges over the incident.

The Rich Mountain Fire was the latest in a series of blazes that have burned in Great Smoky Mountains and other parks along the Appalachians over the past few weeks, some of which have sparked evacuations and closed sections of the Appalachian Trail. On November 16, a car accident on I-40 started the Black Bear Fire, which grew to about 2,000 acres and closed several miles of the AT, including Max Patch. Starting on November 12, the Matt's Creek fire closed 20 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway and another stretch of the AT.

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