More than 900 buildings have been damaged across Spokane County as three wildfires continue to tear through the area, according to FOX 13 Seattle. Aerial footage captured the scale of the destruction, showing at least one neighborhood that appears to have been completely leveled. While the flames are no longer burning in some pockets of the county, crews are still working toward containment and evacuation orders remain in place.
As of this morning, the Autumn Lane fire remained the largest of the three, having grown to more than 5,700 acres with 37 percent containment. The Fairview fire was smaller at just under 1,000 acres but less contained, sitting at 31 percent. Together the blazes have burned across a wide part of the county.
Even in areas where the fire has passed and is no longer actively burning, evacuation orders remain in effect. The sheriff stressed that the situation is still dangerous and that residents should not read a quiet neighborhood as a sign that the emergency is over. Conditions on the ground, he warned, can change quickly.
The sheriff underscored just how volatile the landscape has become, saying there is effectively a 100 percent chance that a spark from almost anything could start a new fire. He put it in those stark terms as he explained why officials are keeping evacuation orders in place across large parts of the county, even as some residents push to return home.
That frustration has been building among neighbors who say the fire is out in their area and believe they should be allowed to go back home. The sheriff said he understood how residents in those situations might look at the calm around them and conclude that they would be fine staying put, and he spoke to those concerns directly rather than dismissing them.
But he explained the reasoning behind keeping people out. With the ongoing wind event and the way a fire might behave if the unthinkable happens, he said, the flames could come right back at those neighborhoods. The fire lines in the area are not established enough to guarantee the fire would not cross them, and officials are not confident they could evacuate such a heavily and densely populated place quickly enough to avoid the loss of life. For that reason, the answer to letting people return remained no.
With the winds kicking back up, the danger is expected to grow again, and a live look at the map showed level 3 'go now' evacuation orders still marked in red across a wide part of the county. As crews push toward containment, the community has continued to rally together, with volunteers and firefighters working side by side. FOX 13's A.J. Janneville reported from Spokane, where he had been speaking with those on the front lines throughout the morning.