Monday marks nine days since wildfires broke out in Spokane, sending thousands of people fleeing for safety.
No casualties have been reported, and the Spokane Complex is now about 50% contained. A suspect in the fires has been charged with arson.
For hundreds of victims, recovery will be a long road.
Late last week, temperatures in Washington's second-largest city remained hot, reaching 100 degrees. Conditions were dry, and the winds blew around the smoky air.
Bobby hasn't been seen in six days. He's a black cat.
"This is the first day that we've come back since the fire, so we wanted to see what it looked like. And we're mostly looking for our cat," said Venus Allison, Bobby's owner and longtime Spokane resident.
A wildfire came through Allison's peaceful neighborhood almost a week ago, on Aug. 1. She was able to get the family's other cat and two dogs evacuated, but not Bobby.
Allison's home is gone. She already knew this after neighbors sent photos.
Spokane's Indian Trail neighborhood was hit hard by the Old Trails Fire. It's a suburban area with a lot of new development, manicured lawns, covered front porches, and a view of a field. Now, public officials have used "war zone" and "apocalyptic" to describe this and other hard-hit neighborhoods.
Houses on the block adjacent to Allison's are still standing, but they're covered in a blanket of pink flame retardant that was dropped in haste by fire crews.
"We saw the fire miles and miles away before it jumped the river," she said. " And once it jumped the river, it came so fast. So, we quickly packed go bags with just minimal stuff. We joke that if we'd known that [other] houses with the grass would survive, we'd have thrown so much stuff onto that grass."
One mile directly south, Andy McKean and his wife have been raising their kids in a quiet cul-de-sac. They have four kids, three of them still at home, twin soccer players and a skilled painter who's about to head to college at the University of Washington. They were away from home when the fire started.
But their 17-year-old daughter and her grandma made a mad dash back to get their dog Deebo, half an hour before their street was evacuated. Hours later, the block was decimated.
"Not until the next day, we all went back. We were able to get in and see it in daylight. And that was pretty tough," McKean said.
He said it's just overwhelming, a common feeling among fire victims. The house is gone. They need to find a rental. Soccer practice starts soon. They're dealing with insurance. They're going back to work.
"The current home that burned, we were there for eight years. Half of our kids' lives. The 10 years before that, the house that we brought them home to as babies is only about two miles away, and that neighborhood is also decimated. The kids have 15 to 20 friends, there's probably more, that lost their homes. They're in a pretty terrible position as well. We just feel terrible for everybody," he said.
There's an old motto in Spokane: "Near nature, near perfect."
Riverside State Park is one of the reasons for it, with the Spokane River bounding by and trails through Ponderosa pine forests.
The Old Trails Fire swept through this state park and went on to burn neighborhoods.
But Spokane, a forested city of about 230,000 people, isn't used to wildfires.
The morning the fires started, people were running loops on the Bowl and Pitcher Loop Trail in the state park. Others played in a volleyball tournament nearby. Those sites are now scarred by fire.
Spokane hasn't dealt with a fire of this gravity since 1991, and before that, 1889.
But the city jumped into action in the past week, as if it was a well-oiled fire relief machine.
On Saturday, Nicole Beam, aka Ms. Sparkles, threw a free community event for displaced families and firefighters. With all of the stress, she wanted kids to have a few hours to forget their troubles.
Beam, a professional face painter of 13 years, had Disney princesses posing for photos, games, a foam machine, and a free raffle with donations from businesses around Spokane.
"Parents always put on such a strong face and a brave face, so I want the parents to be able to relax for a little bit. They don't have to carry the burden alone. Their community is here to help them, and we want to just forget about it for an afternoon," she said. "Smile, sparkle."
Fundraisers and donation drives have done so well that some are stopping collection, so they can focus on getting goods into people's hands. On the larger scale, the city's official donation fund had raised nearly $400,000 as of the weekend. And GoFundMe drives have raised more than $200,000.
Relief is also coming in small batches, from a lemonade stand on the South Hill and thrift store clothing drive, $5,000 raised by Spokane Pride, and 15,000 pounds of supplies trucked over by Seattle breweries.
Those efforts have been appreciated by victims like Venus Allison.
"My husband and I are so humbled and appreciative. The friends of ours that have given us money aside from the GoFundMe, our church has given us money, and just all the people that have re-posted about our lost cat. I just feel like the community is doing an outstanding job," she said.
What comes next will have to start small.
Venus Allison continued to walk her torched sidewalk calling out for Bobby.
"He's beautiful and black. And he used to be a street cat. So, I have high hopes that he's gonna just come meowing to us," she said.
People have put out pet food and water on most blocks. SCRAPS, the local animal rescue, has been through the Indian Trail area several times looking for lost pets.
Next will come a deeper dive through the rubble that remains of people's homes.
" I wake up in a panic remembering something else we lost. Just this morning, I remembered that I have my mom, she's 92 and she's in assisted living, I have her wedding ring with so many diamonds. I mean, had, I should say. But also my husband and I's wedding rings burned up, because we were waiting to get them resized," she said.
Andy McKean has had those moments, too.
"There's been a couple of times that something has popped into my head that [we have lost that] has made me break down. Mostly stuff that the kids made. My daughter is a really talented artist, and my office was kind of a shrine to her work," he said.
Both families are wondering if, or when, they'll be able to rebuild.
Allison has heard it'll take three to four years. McKean has heard two to three.
"But that's really only part of it, because the neighborhood I can't imagine is really going to recover. It's not going to even really look like a real neighborhood for probably five years if I had to guess," he said.
The city is already starting to do some recovery work. Waste disposal and utility trucks are out making rounds. Evacuation orders are starting to ease.
A business marquee captured the moment this weekend in a phrase: "Pain is real, but so is hope."
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