Pro angler ‘lucky’ to escape wildfire

Tim Malone snapped this shot as he left his home in Gatlinburg with fires all around him.

Pro angler Tim Malone lost his home and almost everything he owned in the Tennessee wildfires, but he might have lost more had it not been for an evacuating motorist blaring his car horn.

Malone was among those who rushed out of their homes when high winds whipped fires through Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The fires are blamed in 13 deaths, and the number of buildings damaged is up to 1,000, including Malone’s home that burned to the foundation.

“I guess it reminds you of what’s important,” the FLW Tour and Bassmaster Opens pro said. “I got my family out safe. It kind of stinks to lose everything, but we’ll survive it.”

Monday, Nov. 28, was an ominous day in the region as smoke from a number of small fires had the community on high alert. A weather system forecast to dump rain was hoped to help alleviate the threat, but the outflowing wind exacerbated it. 

“It was the perfect storm,” Malone said. “The mixture of the fire, the high winds, the extreme drought, it was almost inevitable.”

Malone got home around 7 p.m. and ate dinner. He and wife, Melissa, who works for the National Park Service, knew a forest fire was as close as 5 miles away, so they planned to stay up all night monitoring the situation.

“At 7:30, a car comes past my house just laying on the horn,” Malone said. “I open my door and the whole mountainside above my house is on fire. It was probably 50, 60 yards from my house. Too close. I turn around, ‘Get your stuff! We got to go!’”

In the next three minutes or so, they grabbed pictures off the walls, two laptops, some clothes and hurried to the vehicles. Melissa took their 14-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, in her car and Malone drove his rig trailering his new boat. They went down the mountain to a church, a safe spot at the time. Malone unhooked his boat and went back up to the house, thinking he could fend off the fire with a water hose.

He was spraying the side of the house closest to the flames when the situation worsened. He quickly realized his efforts were futile – it became dangerous and he needed to leave. Storm force winds created a surreal firestorm, like something out of a movie, he said.

“It was just all these big, massive balls of embers, fireballs in the sky. There were some that were jumping miles, from one mountain to the next,” he said. “There were fires everywhere. Every direction you looked, there were fires.

“One would hit a house, and it was like the house was covered in gasoline. Instantly, the whole house would burst into flames. You’d hear a big explosion, maybe blowing the windows out, propane bottles … It’d hit the next house and do the same thing.”

Tim Malone poses with wife, Melissa, and their two daughters.

Malone had hooked up his second boat and, reassessing the scenario, quickly went back down to his family around 8 p.m. He switched boats then caught up with the 25-mile, bumper-to-bumper evacuation line of vehicles leaving the danger zone.

“I was really scared my clothes were going to catch fire – I got to get out of here,” he said of being in the firestorm. “I was very lucky, very lucky. When I went back up there, it wasn’t really that bad. Then it got bad.”

SMOKE GETS IN EYES

“My house is fine, the kids are fine, we’re all well and good, but for it to impact that close to home, it’s too close to home,” said Bassmaster Elite pro David Walker, who lives about 20 miles from Malone in Sevierville.

Like most everyone in the region, Walker took keen interest that fateful night, following the progression of the fires that ended up displacing some 14,000 residents and visitors. He said fall fires are rather common in the region but he noted there had been more this year due to little rain and high temperatures through October. The U.S. Drought Monitor rated the region its most extreme category of “exceptional drought.”

Walker said winds shifting daily had created occasional air quality alerts, but Monday was worse than usual. It was so smoky it had his wife, Misty, coughing. A severe storm was forecast and everyone hoped it would help douse flames, but the winds actually acted more like bellows. Walker said the wind howled, climbing to more 50 mph. Storm force winds of 80 mph were reported.

“So all the little fires, and all that kindling that’s been baking in the weather, it was just kind of building to the perfect storm,” Walker said. “We’ve never had fires like that. We’ve had fires, but it’s leaves and twigs and sticks. If it gets near a building, they put it out.

“If it’s coming at you, you step over it. It’s not a raging forest fire, but with the wind we had, it became one. And then it was jumping across valleys, hitting the top of the next hilltop. That one would ignite, and the wind would carry that to the next one. All the sudden, 15,000 acres is ignited. It was a long night, to be honest.”

This map shows fires in the region.

The strong winds from the south pushed flames north from Gatlinburg toward Pigeon Forge. Fire destroyed hundreds of structures in both vacation towns that lead into the huge National Park.

“Anything that would burn, did burn,” Walker said. “The homes, cabins and businesses you see, there’s nothing left but the concrete. These things are leveled.”

Monday’s hard wind was followed by rains Tuesday that helped firefighters and first responders. The relief was incredible, Walker said.

“We got lightning, and thunder, and as long as it keeps pouring, who cares. Just let it rain,” he said. “Tuesday, it poured. We got several inches over a 10-, 12-hour span. Wednesday was the first day I can remember that wasn’t smoky.”

The weather system was so powerful – there were reports that people as far away as southern Michigan smelled the smoke – it spawned several tornadoes in the region, and there was flooding and mudslides.

“You got to be pretty tough to live around here,” Walker joked.

Walker said it’s a shock to fathom such a major disaster where you live. He’s seen pictures and video of familiar places lost, like the Treetops lodge where his wife used to work.

“You just look at them – it doesn’t look real,” he said. “It’s West Coast, California, places and people you’re not familiar with where this happens. When it’s places you know well, it makes it that much more of a strange feeling.”

One positive that eased his daughters’ minds was that Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg was spared. The caretakers were under the mandatory evacuation, leaving behind 11,000 sea creatures.

“The girls were sad to hear some of the stuff – they’re happiest to hear that nothing at the Ripley’s got killed,” Walker said. “They had to abandon ship and leave all the animals in there. That facility wasn’t burnt, and they all lived through it.”

Another iconic attraction in Pigeon Forge is Dollywood, which also escaped major damage. Owner Dolly Parton, the country music artist, has long been active in the area – Walker said his daughters still receive books because they were born at Dolly Parton Birthing Unit of LeConte Medical Center in Sevierville. Parton stepped up this week, vowing to give $1,000 a month to each family left homeless by the disaster. To donate, visit her MyPeopleFund.

The region has stopped accepting shipments of supplies for now as the volume has overwhelmed workers, Walker said. Residents weren’t allowed back into Gatlinburg until Friday.

Malone took this photo of what was left of his home.

Elite angler Brandon Card lives in Dandridge, across Douglas Lake about 30 miles from Gatlinburg, and he said he not only smelled the smoke, but he also had to clean up effects from the fires.

“It was the weirdest,” he said. “Monday, the sky had this really eerie glow to it. There was ash in the sky everywhere, getting all over our vehicles. It was so weird that we got that kind of wind – what a crazy happening!”

Card said he spoke with Malone and couldn’t imagine seeing things like the fireballs flying across the sky, nor losing everything. Card said he is among the anglers who are trying to help Malone get back on his feet. There is a group putting together care packages of tackle.

“I came out of there with nothing but a boat,” Malone said. “I’ve had quite a few guys reach out and say they’re trying to put some stuff together.”

Malone wasn’t even sure about his boat left at the church. A fireman messaged him and said the cover was all shriveled up, but he’s unsure of the damage. He did make it to his house on Wednesday, sneaking inside the barricades when tasked to get some supplies for a shelter.

“Once they let me past that barricade, they messed up,” he said. “I wasn’t coming out without going and checking it out. I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I snuck back in. I had to know.”

Everything was gone, leaving him trying to figure out where his family will stay. A friend loaned them a camper he hopes to set up in Gatlinburg.

“We meet with insurance adjusters this weekend, and figure out if we build back or not,” he said.

He said the FLW might not be in his plans but he hopes to fish at least the Bass Pro Shops Northern Open series. Malone said a number of anglers like Card, as well as others in the fishing industry, have contacted him seeing how they could help.

“The support and care is very humbling and so appreciated. So many people reaching out is so therapeutic. It just makes you feel good,” he said. “There are people out there who are in worse shape than we are. There are people who lost lives, family members.

“I feel blessed. We’re safe. I hate some of the stuff we lost, home videos and pictures and stuff like that, but the rest of it can be replaced. We’ll survive.”

And while he doesn’t yet know, and may never know, who honked their horn and alerted his family of the danger, he’ll be forever grateful. “They helped save us, no doubt.”

A relative has set up a GoFundMe page for the Malones.