Wildfire tears through Tennessee as region suffers exceptional drought

Smoke rises from wildfires in the Great Smoky Mountains near Gatlinburg, Tenn., on Tuesday. (Photo by Great Smoky Mountains National Park)
As a wildfire raced into Tennessee’s Sevier County on Monday evening, local officials rushed to get people out of town.
More than 14,000 people evacuated from the town of Gatlinburg alone — images posted on Twitter by the Tennessee Highway Patrol showed state troopers carrying luggage through neighborhoods surrounded by flames. The nearby town of