Post Falls community forest shows strong recovery nearly three years after Parkway Fire

Nearly three years after the Parkway Fire tore through the south side of the Spokane River near Q’emiln Park, the burned edge of the Post Falls Community Forest is showing clear signs of recovery, even as city crews keep working to make it safer for the next dry summer.

Daniel Lambert, the city’s natural area trail technician, said grasses have returned and planted seedlings are already growing strongly in the fire scar. He described a landscape that is healing as expected, with trees regenerating in the areas that burned hardest. The change is visible in a forest that lost 80 acres to the Aug. 4, 2023 blaze, about one-fifth of the city’s 500-acre community forest.

The fire began from an unattended campfire and quickly became one of the county’s major wildfire responses that summer. Kootenai County commissioners later declared an emergency because of life-safety concerns and the cost of suppression. More than 200 firefighters, 30 fire apparatus and 14 firefighting aircraft were called in as the fire grew to 60 acres on Aug. 4 and 80 acres by the next day. Evacuations were ordered for 30 homes in one city account, and more than 100 homes were reported in early breaking coverage before some residents were later allowed back.

The city reopened most of the forest by Sept. 6, 2023, but the hardest-hit ground stayed closed through the winter. By Feb. 8, 2024, significant parts were still off limits because burned trees, compromised root systems and unstable trunks made the terrain dangerous. That caution still shapes how the area is managed even as the forest recovers.

The restoration has been a joint effort. Inland Forest Management and Inland Empire Paper Company donated seedlings, while Friends of the Post Falls Community Forest helped with planting and rehabilitation. A mitigation project led by the Idaho Department of Lands, along with the city of Post Falls and the Kootenai County Office of Emergency Management, began in December 2023 and treated 71 acres, creating a 300-foot-wide shaded fuel break along the south and east edges.

That work matters beyond the burn scar. City planning documents describe the Post Falls Community Forest as a planned multi-use natural area for recreation, education and reclaimed-water drip irrigation, with the 250-acre Lost Mine parcel, purchased in 2015, forming part of its long-term buildout. After a fire that was human-caused and still tied to an unanswered origin, the forest’s rebound is becoming a test case in how a local landscape can recover while also being reshaped to better withstand the next fire.