When seconds counted, TDOT worker cleared path to Gatlinburg for wildfire crews

Matt Lakin
Knoxville
A vehicle with a snow plow is seen approaching the Spur during the Nov. 28, 2016, fires. Such a vehicle was used to help clear trees from the road that evening.

GATLINBURG — As fire overwhelmed the city, reinforcements sat stuck in traffic.

U.S. Highway 321, better known as the Spur, stretches 5 winding, tree-lined miles on the way into Gatlinburg from Pigeon Forge to the north. Police, park rangers and Tennessee Department of Transportation crews worked nonstop the night of the Nov. 28, 2016, wildfires to clear the lanes as trees toppled into traffic left and right.

More:1 year ago, a 'whole mountain on fire' forever changed Gatlinburg

But for every tree they cut and dragged away, another fell to take its place.

A tree-lined trap

As the firestorm overwhelmed emergency crews inside the city, firefighters, state troopers, paramedics and others poured in to offer help. But the first wave of relief nearly dried up when an old-growth hardwood tree, more than 2 feet in diameter, thudded to the pavement near Wiley Oakley Drive at the edge of town.

Crews broke two chainsaws trying to penetrate the trunk. Flames reached the edge of the road as traffic backed up along the highway. More trees threatened to fall at any moment as winds raced through the valley at interstate speeds.

Every second lost meant more lives in danger, inside the city and out.

Tennessee Department of Transportation worker Bradley Eledge, left, used his dump truck outfitted with a snow plow to help clear fallen trees during the November 2016 wildfires. "The fire was right on top of us, so it was kind of an act of desperation," he said. "I knew everybody was counting on me.”

Drivers and their passengers started doing the survival math in their heads. Which tree would fall next? Who would it land on? How long until a car caught fire? Could they outrun the flames and raining embers to the creek along the median if the fire jumped the road?

“I was not sure we were going to live through it,” said Knoxville Fire Department Assistant Chief Mark Wilbanks, who’d been sent to help direct the emergency response. “I’ve been in the Coast Guard and seen 80 mph winds at sea. But this felt like being in a wind tunnel full of fire. There were trees down in front of us and behind us. We couldn’t get out. There was fire on the left side of us and fire on the right side of us. These are big trees, and if one of them falls on one of these cars, we’re in a world of trouble.”

'Everybody was counting on me'

TDOT worker Bradley Eledge had driven up from his home in the nearby New Center community in his single-axle dump truck, outfitted with a 10-foot-by-3-foot steel plow for clearing snow. As emergency vehicles backed up along the Spur, his boss, Doug Tarwater, approached the cab, coughing in the heavy smoke.

“I don’t care what you have to do,” the boss told him. “Just move that tree.”

Eledge didn’t have to be told twice.

A Tennessee Department of Transportation snow plow clears the road into Gatlinburg the night of the Nov. 28, 2016, wildfire.

“I’ve never been in nothing like that before,” he said. “You don’t have time to plan. Everywhere you look, you see fire and smoke. The fire was right on top of us, so it was kind of an act of desperation. I knew everybody was counting on me.”

Eledge backed up, shifted gears and hit the gas — once, again, then again. The first time the tree groaned. The second time it budged slightly.

The third time he put the gas pedal to the floor.

More:Map: Fires reported during the Gatlinburg fire

The truck shuddered. The plow broke. The dashboard vents landed in the floorboards.

But the tree moved — enough to open the road.

Police cruisers, fire engines and ambulances fell into line on the way to Gatlinburg.

Eledge spent much of the night and the next day helping to keep the way clear.

“I was just doing what I was told to do,” he said. “My job was to keep the road open, and I knew where there was a will, there was a way.” 

Related:

Prologue: 1 year ago, a 'whole mountain on fire' forever changed Gatlinburg

Part I: Mountaintop spark, rising wind lit the fuse for Gatlinburg firestorm

Part II: Air attacks, big box couldn't cage fire's surge toward Gatlinburg

Part III: 'Like Armageddon': How the Gatlinburg fire became unstoppable and swarmed a city

Part IV: 'No way out': Sacrifice and survival in the final desperate hours of the Gatlinburg fire

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