The fire review process included a thorough analysis of all communications and decisions made from the time the fire began on Nov. 23, 2016, to the time it left the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at 6 p.m. Nov. 28. According to the review team, here’s how it unfolded.

Nine months after a small wildfire in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park metastasized into a deadly blaze that wreaked havoc on Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, a report reviewing the National Park Service’s decisions and actions leading up to the Nov. 28 firestorm has been released.

Austin Bohanan, 18, had been lost in the wilderness for 11 days when he woke up the morning of Aug. 22 to see boats floating on the water below the ridge where he’d slept.

Those boats were his ticket out of the nightmare that began Aug. 11 when he’d gotten separated from his stepfather Hubert Dyer, Jr., during an off-trail excursion in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Chilhowee Lake. Bohanan scrambled down to the water, which turned out to be the tail end of Abrams Creek, and waved down one of the boats. The boaters gave him a ride down to Shop Creek, where his family was gathered to support the crews searching for him.

The Franklin Town Council recently approved a $700 expense that will allow the town’s police force to be armed with a life-saving drug Narcan.

A brand new Public Services Training Facility was unveiled Monday at Haywood Community College.

Macon County Commissioners hope a newly established Fire Task Force will be able to create more consistency among the county’s 11 fire districts.

Emergencies like the Gatlinburg fires of 2016 and simulated emergencies like last week’s Operation Vigilant Catamount in Canton have brought disaster planning back to the forefront of many minds locally — perfect timing for Haywood County Emergency Services Coordinator Greg Shuping to make his pitch for a new emergency notification system.

By the dawn’s early light, about 300 members of the North Carolina National Guard along with a host of local law enforcement personnel and first responders gathered at Guion Farm in nearby DuPont State Forest, outside Hendersonville the morning of June 8. 

Two aircrew had ejected from their F-15 just before it augured in to the rocky dirt, sparking a large fire and kicking off a massive search and rescue mission.

The Macon County commissioners have some challenges in balancing the proposed 2017-18 budget, but County Manager Derek Roland said those challenges are the same ones every local government is facing right now.

A multi-agency training exercise led by the N.C. National Guard meant to test and improve disaster response will result in roadblocks and an elevated level of police, fire and military activity in Canton on the morning of June 10.