Roaring flames coursed across Spokane County indiscriminately the week after Aug. 1.
The Old Trails, Autumn Lane and Fairview fires leapt valleys, tore through dense ponderosa pine and raced up and down hills an d bluffs. They heaved columns of smoke and burning embers. They left behind ash, charred wildlands and craters where homes once stood.
More than 65,000 people fled their homes and stayed away for more than a week, leaving behind keepsakes, heirlooms and medications. Some livestock and pets were evacuated, but many were left behind.
Firefighters from across the region made stands few and far between, within pockets of houses, as high winds and dry conditions fueled the staggering damage. Seasoned first responders faced the blazes, and many fought hours on end despite having little protective equipment, resources and sleep.
In total, 833 structures were lost or damaged in what’s now referred to as the Spokane Complex fires. Of those, 615 were from the Old Trails fire, 160 from the Autumn Lane fire and 58 from the Fairview fire.
On Friday The Spokesman-Review boarded a 1978 Cessna with flight instructor Jon Griffin of the Northwest Flight Service for a bird’s -eye perspective of the aftermath.
The two-hour flight punctuated what seasoned firefighters, wildfire experts and local elected leaders have struggled to put into words in the nearly two weeks since the flames swept into city neighborhoods of northwest Spokane, burned homes and blackened recreational areas in the Little Spokane River Valley, and raged across fields and forestland near Mead.
Griffin let out a soft gasp as he flew a couple thousand feet above what little remains of the Indian Trails neighborhood Friday.
It was the first time he had been up in his plane to put eyes on the destruction himself.
“Jesus,” Griffin said, his voice crackling through his headset. “Would you look at that.”
Autumn Lane
Lake Spokane is three-quarters of a mile at its widest point. The distance seems significant from the sky.
But as the Autumn Lane fire tore through hundreds of acres of Riverside State Park‘s northernmost end and neared the water, it lofted embers skyward where winds topping 45 mph carried the firestarters across the river where they ignited brush and trees. The fire burned 5,700 acres, including Lookout Mountain.
A thicket of trees resembling toothpicks from the air is all that remains of what had been a grove of tall ponderosa pines that stood sentinel over a swath of the Spokane River’s southwest bank. On the other side of the river lies Suncrest.
The imprints of a few scorched structures are sprinkled among the mostly standing homes in the rural community. On a normal cul-de-sac lined with green yards is a crater, all that remains of the home that once rose on the end. Patches of black, gray and white debris left behind by the fire are spread far and wide.
The algae bloom in Lake Spokane is a jolt of green in the landscape, framed by the pink and red stains of flame retardant.
Old Trails
It’s a wonder how any home in the Indian Trails neighborhood still stands.
Above West Rifle Club Road, the neighborhood around Westgate Park resembles the helter-skelter of wildfire.
Green yards and standing homes are clumped near the ash-laden rubble of destroyed homes.
The Old Trails fire took more homes than the other two combined after jumping the Spokane River, the first fire to do so on Aug. 1. In total, more than 3,100 acres burned.
Avista crews were in the area Friday, their work trucks resembling matchbox trucks up against damage on a monumental scale. Their crisp coat of bright paint stands out among the charcoal gray windowless corpses of automobiles littering the streets.
The conditions could have allowed the Old Trails fire to join with the Autumn Lane and engulf much more of Spokane County’s northwest corner. But a long contiguous Pepto-Bismol -colored stain left by flame retardant runs separates the two across miles of roadways, homes and power lines. It’s evidence of the substantial air support used to combat the blazes.
Griffin then flew further East.
Fairview
“Wow,” Griffin said. “Clear to the top of the plateau.”
The Peone Prairie is typically amber in August.
Spring wheat is ready for harvest and farmers are getting second and third cuts of alfalfa .
The Fairview fire left the prairie in a bedraggled calico coat – large black burned fields sit directly next to untouched grain. Sprinkled in the agricultural area are destroyed structures. The rural nature of the area likely helped keep the blaze from taking more homes.
Residents also played a role in protecting the area’s homes. Tire tracks and cut swaths laid over top of each other that were left behind by tractors and disc harrows as farmers scraped their own fire breaks.
Closer to Spokane’s urban core, a lone vegetable garden served as a splash of green in an otherwise scorched field.
The fire ran up against Highway 395. On the other side of the hill, just out of sight of drivers, are the ashy white imprints of trees on the ground, marking exactly where they fell and burned.
“I took a drive down 395 just this week,” Griffin said. “I didn’t see all that.”