West Coast crews mobilize to battle Southeast fires

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — One hundred firefighters from the West Coast arrived here Tuesday afternoon to battle active wildfires across several Southern states.
The U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday it was tracking 33 wildfires totaling about 80,000 acres across the Southeastern USA. The biggest fires were in Georgia and North Carolina.
A charter jet carrying the five, 20-person handcrews, most from Washington and Oregon, touched down at TAC Air of McGhee Tyson Airport around 4 p.m. ET. The crews were not the first, nor will they be the last, recruited to alleviate the drought and wildfire emergency plaguing the Southeast. Thirty-five crews had already landed, and five to seven crews were slated to arrive each day this week in Knoxville — a prime hub because of its central location, said Eastern Area Incident Management Team spokeswoman Catherine Coele.
When the jet hits the tarmac, the firefighters on board have no idea where they will be heading or what fire they will be fighting, whether it's in Tennessee, Georgia or North Carolina, Coele said. They are given that information later at the "mobilization center" — a conference room at the nearby Hilton Hotel.