Does Tennessee deal with fires like the West does? (Gatlinburg: house, tornado)

[lifexponential]

I already know the answer....probably no. My husband was getting into an argument with me saying that Tennessee deals with fires...when I was complaining how I'm tired of all the fires cropping up here in WA and everywhere you go. It's because of such dry conditions! Even with the rains we get during the year, the summer sure has been hot and contributes to the problems. Nothing like it is in California, poor folks...but we have been getting many as well....
with that said, I bet because of the humidity, the southeast does not deal with fires, though lightning can cause some at times.
What's your take?

[N.Cal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_G...ains_wildfires

[DonCorleone]

Smoky Mountain Fire of 2016 aside, no...they're not as widespread or common as they seem to be out west.

We do experience drought quite often, the authorities will place burn bans in effect, etc. So there is a risk of that here, but it never seems to get out of control like you hear about out west.

[N.Cal]

Originally Posted by DonCorleone

Smoky Mountain Fire of 2016 aside, no...they're not as widespread or common as they seem to be out west.

We do experience drought quite often, the authorities will place burn bans in effect, etc. So there is a risk of that here, but it never seems to get out of control like you hear about out west.

TN doesn't get the Santa Ana winds like SoCal which drives a lot of their problems. More rain in TN too so things aren't as dry here.

[BirdieBelle]

No, it's not a problem we face here, like tornadoes.

[danielj72]

Originally Posted by DonCorleone

Smoky Mountain Fire of 2016 aside, no...they're not as widespread or common as they seem to be out west.

We do experience drought quite often, the authorities will place burn bans in effect, etc. So there is a risk of that here, but it never seems to get out of control like you hear about out west.

This is the correct answer. I live in East Tennessee and had fires burn somewhat near me in 2016. Most of the fires burned up on the mountains where no one lives .......except the one deadly chimney tops fire that burned down into Gatlinburg area causing so much death and destruction. It was a very weird fall, exceptionally dry. For about a month those fires burned and filled the air with smoke. Of course normal weather returned and it all went away very quickly. The following summer the burned areas greened right back up. It is probably safe to say that we will not see anything like that again in our lifetimes. This is a typically wet green and lush landscape. What happened in 2016 was a true anomaly.

Flooding and tornadoes have caused far more harm here than fire ever has

[jabogitlu]

TN and other eastern states don't generally have the vast wildland fires of the west. There just isn't enough contiguous, unsettled landscape. When I lived in Alaska, there were many wildland fires that just burned uncontrolled (but monitored) because they were so far from anything. That is just not the wildland-urban interface reality of a state like TN.

The Gatlinburg fire was tragic (I grew up in nearby Greene County) and an exceptionally unique example of wildland-urban interface issues. Very few mountainous areas in TN are built up like that. North Carolina will have a much harder time with this than TN in the future.

[Metairie]

Originally Posted by BirdieBelle

No, it's not a problem we face here, like tornadoes.

So I was just in Nashville last week house hunting and the locals say the tornadoes rarely actually hit homes? I don't know what to believe as a city doesn't get tornado alarms for nothing right? The statistics say Louisiana has more tornados and I never experienced even one in my 30 years in New Orleans suburbs.

[septimus]

Originally Posted by Metairie

So I was just in Nashville last week house hunting and the locals say the tornadoes rarely actually hit homes? I don't know what to believe as a city doesn't get tornado alarms for nothing right? The statistics say Louisiana has more tornados and I never experienced even one in my 30 years in New Orleans suburbs.

We go under Tornado Warnings probably 4-5 times a year, but rarely do they do much destruction (unless it is your house). We generally get F-0 and F-1s. Not the big F-3s or higher like Oklahoma

[Hey_Hey]

Originally Posted by Metairie

So I was just in Nashville last week house hunting and the locals say the tornadoes rarely actually hit homes? I don't know what to believe as a city doesn't get tornado alarms for nothing right? The statistics say Louisiana has more tornados and I never experienced even one in my 30 years in New Orleans suburbs.

While the F4s and F5s get headlines, these are very, very rare. Since 1950 there have only been 59 F5 tornadoes in the entire United States. In that same time frame, there have been 566 F4 tornadoes. That compares to: 2436 F3 tornadoes, 9000 F2 tornadoes, 20,517 F1 tornadoes, and 28,432 F0 tornadoes. There's only a 1% chance that any give tornado is an F4 or F5. There's only 4% chance it is an F3. That means there is a 95% chance any given tornado is only an F0-F2 which aren't going to cause significant damage. Futhermore, there are only ~900 tornadoes that touch down in the US every year which means it is very, very unlikely that your house will be hit when you consider most tornadoes are only 50-100 yards wide and travel a mile or two. Basically, to have your house hit by a tornado is an exceedingly rare event and there are things that pose much greater risk to you and your property.