According to a state forester official today (Wednesday, August 9, 2017) at a press conference, firefighters that battled the Gatlinburg wildfire late last year were working without GPS maps and using old cell phones, in some cases, old flip phones. In the wake of the fires on November 28, 2016, the State Forestry Department is buying 101 new smartphones that will give firefighters better access to Google Earth and mapping technology. The wildfire took 14 lives and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings. State Forester Jere Jeter took questions from the media in Nashville today, based on internal reports from employees involved in fighting those fires. Jeter said the State Forestry Department is also planning to replace 112 bulldozers for firefighting over the next four years. And they plan to put GPS tracking devices on some equipment to streamline dispatching. Jeter says they had some communication challenges between the U.S. Forest Service on the ground and the Air National Guard. The agencies use different radio devices. Generally, the state shares radio frequencies with other agencies and was able to help with communication in Sevier County. “We had 50 people in Gatlinburg within two hours after the fire hit. Some were our employees, some were from Alaska and Oregon,” said Jeter, who explained the out-of-state teams had been working fires in other parts of the state. Teams from Florida and Texas also joined the effort. Jeter called conditions highly unusual for the region, with 80 mile an hour winds that blew embers as far as a mile away. “You had a situation that I’m just thankful more people didn’t lose their lives.”