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To the people who call it home, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, is still just a small town near the Smoky Mountain National Park, but it’s a small town that has grown tremendously in the last 30 years.
In many ways, the Pigeon Forge Fire Department (PFFD) represents the city itself: quickly growing and advancing at a fast pace while remaining a close-knit community of families. The local population is around 6,500 on almost 13 square miles, but it receives about 14 million visitors a year, according to Chief Tony Watson of the Pigeon Forge Fire Department.
“There is a lot of commercial stuff here,” said Watson. “We don’t really have an off-season.”
Country singer-songwriter Dolly Parton may have a little something to do with that. Pigeon Forge is famous for being her hometown and where she built her Dollywood Amusement Park. But the area also is famous for its many entertainment and tourist activities, as well outdoor activities in the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Fourteen million visitors create an enormous amount of traffic, and there’s continuous construction. If all that wasn’t enough to keep a fire department busy, the region also endures wildfires and flash floods.
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Watson’s department is first due to Dollywood, and they also run a “very aggressive” auto-aid with the city of Gatlinburg, the City of Sevierville, and Walden’s Creek Fire Department. “We work really close together.” PFFD also covers 25 square miles in the county through mutual aid.
The Gatlinburg Fire
In 2016, the area experienced the “Chimney Top 2 Fire,” a wildfire that devastated Gatlinburg and areas in the park. The fire left 180 injured and 14 dead in Sevier County, as well as massive property losses, with 24 structures destroyed.
“We really learned to work good together after that,” said Watson. “2016 was a very challenging event, I think it made us all better. We now have a Wildland Task Force that is activated across the county on wildland fires when needed.”
The department adds staff on high-fire-danger days and have signs at both ends of town that are updated daily with the fire threat to warn residents. Wildfire prevention has increased with the department, and residents seem more inclined to call in signs of smoke and unpermitted burning.
“I remember those people’s lives okay,” said Watson. “It had a horrendous impact on the community and I want to make a change out of that, a better response for our county so their loss is not in vain.”
The Chief and The Mission
Watson is a second-generation firefighter and was a volunteer for 17 years before becoming a paid firefighter. In 2007, he became the first paid chief. He is straightforward when it comes toward the mission of his department.
“Fire suppression is the first thing,” Watson explains. “Residential fires, wildfires, fire mitigation, EMS, paramedics, advanced life support, vehicle extrication, heavy vehicle extrication, confined space, trench, water rescue…so we’re smaller, but we want to be really progressive in everything we do.”
“I have three rules,” Watson said. “One-we’re gonna be nice—internally and externally.Two, we’re going to be technically competent. And three, we’re going to be prepared.”
Growth and the Department
PFFD has two stations and does about 3,300 runs per year with 39 full-time firefighters, eight part-time firefighters, nine volunteers, and five administration positions. Eighty-six percent of their runs last year were medical.
“Our department has been growing in a lot of ways in the last few years,“ said Watson. “We have increased our minimum staffing per shift from eight firefighters to 10. We have hired a fire inspector to keep up with the growth of our city.”
They’ve also changed their ranking system to adapt to the growth.
“We added three lieutenants to make two per shift and changed our department to a battalion chief model by promoting three captains to the rank of battalion chief.”
They’re also building a new 30,000-square-foot facility for a new Station One headquarters. “And that represents how fast we’re growing,” said Watson. As a combination department, volunteers provide a minimum of 24 hours a month standby but are welcome to ride anytime. They train every Thursday, whereas the paid firefighters train every day, Watson said.
Time is also set aside for firefighters to spend time in the department gym.
“One of the reasons we have the volunteer program is we get good employees out of it,” said Watson. “We believe it adds great value to our department.”
One challenge Watson said in combining full, part-time and volunteer is getting the volunteer and part-timers to train with all the full-time shifts. PFFD just recently hired two more of the volunteers to become paid, but some volunteers have their own careers and can’t make a full-time commitment.
“One thing I’ve always seen, we treat our volunteers the exact same way we treat our paid,” Watson said. “We really invest in them and they invest back in us.” Watson said becoming a volunteer is a great way to get firefighter training and experience the job, before deciding to commit to a full-time career. Adding part-time and volunteer firefighters to the schedule also helps with special events and eliminates the need for overtime.
Training Days
During one week in April, the department had various training evolutions going on around town.
Sevier County Electric Company was at the firehouse to provide electrical school, a partnership created with the department to provide training and information on various electrical scenarios that a firefighter may encounter and how to deal with them. The Sevierville Electric Company built a large, fully charged training trailer that they bring in for the classes.
There was good weather and a decent crowd of firefighters on hand for the class. The electricians demonstrated and explained the functions of all equipment, how to disable it, and what tasks must be prioritized. They touched on any scenario that firefighters may come in contact with or need to know about on a call.
Nearby, the PFFD was training employees at a hotel on how to give CPR.
While at the local pool, Battalion Chief Garrett King was overseeing the annual swim tests, which are done once a year. Passing is not a requirement, but it’s done so the department knows who to deploy to assist with swiftwater rescues.
The test consists of swimming the length of the regulation-size pool four times, twice while pulling a weighted dummy. Firefighters must also retrieve a brick from the bottom, tread water for several minutes, and tread water with arms above head.
“We have terrible swiftwater events from rain every year,” said King. The Little Pigeon River runs through Pigeon Forge in addition to other small waterways “We can have a swift water flooding event here with blue skies. If it rains 6,000 feet above on top of the mountains, within a couple hours that water is now here, coming down the rivers, waterways, streams and creeks without any rain here.”
Aside from basic firefighter and medical training, Watson said every firefighter is expected to be able to climb seven stories and still perform their job. Rope rescue is required due to the many large hotels in the area.
Constance York is a multimedia journalist from Metro Detroit. She has been documenting the Detroit (MI) Fire Department since around 2002. Check out her Facebook page Detroit on Fire and her YouTube channel.
