"I never did get the evacuation alert, and [that night] the fire seemed far enough away from downtown and the condos on hillsides nearby that I thought it was likely it would be contained before it threatened the city," Burger told the News Sentinel.
Officials at every level are still trying to determine why evacuation orders did not reach many Gatlinburg residents until after fires swept through the town, the News Sentinel reported.
John Mathews, director of the Sevier County Emergency Management Agency, told reporters that an evacuation alert was sent to mobile devices. But at the same news conference, officials acknowledged that those alerts did not reach vulnerable residents, the News Sentinel reported.
"If people did not receive the message we sent out, of course we are unsatisfied with it," Mathews said.
The evacuation alert was also broadcast on local TV and radio, but not until 9.04pm, the paper reported, citing Tennessee Emergency Management Agency records.
Authorities have confirmed that at least 14 people died in the fast-moving fire that tore through Gatlinburg and the surrounding area. The town of about 4000 people, 70km south of Knoxville, is surrounded on three sides by Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Burger believes that if not for his cat, he may have been among those injured or killed.
After spotting the fire, he ran back inside his condo and packed a small bag that included his heart medicine and jumped in his car with Tiger, he told the News Sentinel. It would take the pair four hours to get off the mountain and into Gatlinburg, the popular tourist town where Burger owns a gift shop.
In the end, he was one of the lucky ones. Not only was he safe, but his store and condo survived the inferno as well, the News Sentinel reported.
Tiger's story is the latest account of an animal seeming to portend a natural disaster before it occurs or act as a warning signal. Researchers remain sceptical, however, arguing that predictive behaviour in animals is probably explained by animals being more reactive to signals they associate with danger.
"I think these animals are more attuned to their environment than we give them credit for," Michelle Heupel, a scientist at the Mote Marine Laboratory, once told PBS. "When things change, they may not understand why it's happening, but the change itself may trigger some instinct to move to an area that is safer for them."
Tales of intuitive animals fleeing ahead of time were abundant in the days after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which left more than 200,000 people dead across coastal regions of Southeast Asia. But researchers told PBS there were simple explanations for their lifesaving behaviour.
"As far as running inland to get away from a tsunami, I think an antelope, flamingo, or any other fast animal would probably do so because that's where the forests are," said Whit Gibbons, an ecologist at the University of Georgia. "Feeling a trembling Earth, even if minutes before we would feel it, would not give much guidance to a running or flying animal other than a response to seek safety."
