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Panel To Review How Fire Spread From Park To Gatlinburg

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A fire review team in Tennessee is going to investigate the fires that tore through Gatlinburg and killed 14 people.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash tells the Knoxville News-Sentinel  that a team that has been activated to review the November forest fires that spread from the park and into the tourism community.

Cash says the team will be made up of representatives from the Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a fire chief from a nearby community. He expects the team to arrive "in the next week or two."

There has been some criticism of how Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials handled the fire, which started Nov. 23 on 1.5 acres in a remote part of the park.