Spokane area fires force mass evacuations as containment slowly improves
Firefighters working 16-hour shifts edged the Spokane Complex fires toward containment as nearly 65,000 people were evacuated from Spokane County. Two blazes reached 13% containment, while a third stood at 5%.
Firefighters working 16-hour shifts made only partial gains Wednesday against the Spokane Complex fires, with the Old Trails and Autumn Lane fires each 13% contained and the Fairview fire at 5%. The three-blaze complex began Saturday, Aug. 1, in Spokane and Stevens counties, and the pace of the response has underscored how quickly a western fire season can outstrip local crews.
The emergency widened fast. Nearly 65,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Spokane County as flames pushed toward the edges of Spokane, Washington’s second-largest city. An evacuation shelter opened for Spokane Complex Fire evacuees while a 3,500-acre fire burned north of the city, giving displaced families at least one place to land as smoke, road closures and uncertainty spread across neighborhoods.
By Aug. 2, the Old Trails, Fairview and Autumn Lane fires had burned more than 10,000 acres combined and were still at zero containment. Spokane County officials said the cause remained under investigation. By Aug. 3, the complex had already destroyed hundreds of homes, a level of loss that turned the firefight into a housing and displacement crisis as well as a public safety emergency.
Investigators arrested 37-year-old Aaron Farinacci on Aug. 3 in connection with the Old Trails Fire and charged him with first-degree arson. The arrest sharpened attention on the origin of one branch of the complex, but it did not slow the larger emergency facing crews trying to stop the three fires from merging into an even larger burn scar.
The strain extended far beyond Washington. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on July 29 that CAL FIRE incident management resources were being deployed to Washington as western fires surged, and Southern California fire resources were sent north to help. The National Interagency Fire Center’s Aug. 5 situation report listed National Preparedness Level 5, 87 uncontained large incidents nationwide and 28 incident management teams committed, a sign that the Spokane fires were burning at the same time the national wildfire system was already stretched thin.
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