drought, heat and a rare fire warning

Fast-moving wildfires tore across the Spokane area of eastern Washington over the weekend, destroying homes, forcing thousands of people to flee and prompting a statewide emergency.

What’s burning

Several fires broke out Saturday afternoon in and around Spokane. The largest, the Old Trails Fire in northwest Spokane, had burned about 3,500 acres by Sunday morning, with other fires burning nearby.

Preliminary assessments estimate that about 600 structures have been destroyed, according to Tom Stokesberry, a spokesperson for a California incident-management team helping in Spokane. He cautioned that the figure includes outbuildings and that it was not yet clear how many were homes.

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Why they spread so fast

Forecasters had warned for days that conditions were primed for disaster. The National Weather Service issued a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” fire-weather warning for central and eastern Washington, a rare step reserved for the most extreme conditions. The Spokesman-Review reported it was the first such warning ever issued for eastern Washington.

The trigger was a combination of extreme heat, low humidity and wind gusts of 35 to 45 mph, on top of Washington’s fourth straight year of statewide drought. When the Old Trails Fire started near Airway Heights around noon Saturday, the wind drove it into Riverside State Park and then across the Spokane River into city neighborhoods within hours.

The damage and evacuations

Level 3 “go now” orders emptied much of northwest Spokane. The Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center evacuated patients, and the city cleared its water reclamation facility and waste-to-energy plant. Tens of thousands lost power, many as a precaution, and shelters opened at Spokane Falls Community College and other sites. Crews reported little containment.

The bigger picture

The Spokane fires are part of a brutal season statewide. Officials said more than 1,000 fires have burned about 425,000 acres in Washington this year, the most since 2021, with a dozen large fires still active. “This year has already been one of our busiest wildfire years on record, and we just started August,” Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove said.

What’s next

Forecasters expected winds to shift north and ease Sunday, bringing cooler, less dangerous conditions than Saturday, though not enough to end the threat. Gov. Bob Ferguson, who declared a statewide emergency and a burn ban through Sept. 30, planned to visit Spokane on Sunday. The cause of the fires is under investigation.