I've actually heard about this story, thought not in all the details Yes, it is amazing and illustrates a lot of phenomena of local politics in US (though there is a controversy as usual. There were quite a lot of arsons, which contributed to the problem). But what happened in Tennessee is different. Here the firefighters actually watched the fire, could help but did not. Also in NY it was clear that something went wrong and some officials were at list incompetent if not criminal. But in Tennessee everything seems to be legal and apparently the administration does not think that any official did something wrong.