Girl Killed By Falling Tree At Great Smoky Mountains National Park

SEVIER COUNTY, TN — A 7-year-old girl from Georgia was killed at Great Smoky Mountains National Park early Wednesday when a tree fell on her family's tent while they were camping, park officials said.

Park rangers and emergency personnel from the Gatlinburg Fire Department and Gatlinburg Police Department were called to Elkmont Campground, near the the Tennessee-North Carolina state line, around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday after the tree fell on the girl. The girls' family members, her father and two siblings, were not injured, authorities said.

The tree was a red maple tree about 2 feet in diameter, but no other details surrounding the cause of the tree's fall were released.

Elkmont Campground remains open but the affected campsite and those adjacent to it are closed, according to park officials.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park did not immediately return an inquiry from Patch.

The park covers over 520,000 acres of the Great Smoky Mountains between Tennessee and North Carolina and has 10 developed campgrounds which contain 1,000 total campsites. The mountains are a subrange of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the lower range of the Appalachian Mountains. The Smokies, as they are colloquially known, have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.