Today's headlines:
- Washington’s governor says he’s doing several things to help the recover from wildfires. We’ll hear some of what he said yesterday in Spokane.
- More steps forward as Spokane firefighting teams continue to make progress.
- We’ll hear about two examples of organizations stepping forward to fill the needs of wildfire evacuees.
- Monica Carrillo-Casas tells us about efforts to help Spanish-speaking people in Spokane navigate the wildfires and evacuations.
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Washington Governor Bob Ferguson was in Spokane Monday afternoon to discuss the next steps for those who have been impacted by the wildfires.
The state has already requested and received some federal disaster assistance.
Ferguson said his office is working with local, county and statewide partners to file for a federal major disaster declaration. That would unlock significant financial assistance for individuals and municipalities.
"The request is a major undertaking. It’s a lot of work in a very short period of time and it requires local governments to detail the damage to individuals and to those municipalities in their areas," he said.
Ferguson said these declarations are not always granted, but Washington is determined to make a compelling case for these funds.
He says the state will use its existing powers to help people as well.
"Washington State has an important program called the State Individual Assistance Program for individuals who have lost their homes during a declared emergency. My emergency proclamation makes everyone without insurance who lost their home eligible to receive this assistance, regardless of their household income," Ferguson said.
The changes cover 10 counties and tribal nations…as more than 20 large fires burn across the state.
By putting some enforcements on hold, Ferguson says this will help people more easily replace IDs, licenses and health documents. The proclamation also aims to allow healthcare providers to stand up more services and prevent people from being evicted.
You can read more about the governor’s press conference here.
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Spokane wildfire officials continue to lower the evacuation levels for some areas around the most dangerous zones. Some of the latest areas to move to level 1 – or be ready – include the area bounded by Rutter Parkway and Pacific Park on the north, Francis/Weile/Kathleen on the south, the Spokane River on the west and Division on the east.
There are still two major areas remaining in level 3. One is mostly to the north and east of Nine Mile Falls, in both Spokane and Stevens counties. The second includes Rifle Club Road to the west, between the Dwight Merkel sports complex and the Spokane River.
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The organizers of the Spokane resource fair for wildfire evacuees have adjusted the event’s hours. The fair is now open 9 am to 5 pm at Shadle Park High School today and tomorrow, the last two days for the event. Spokane Public Schools will continue its free day camp for children 4 and older from 11 am to 3 pm again through Wednesday. Free lunches are provided.
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The team leading the wildfire suppression project is holding a series of community meetings this week.
The first focused on the Fairview fire last night at the Union Event Center in Mead.
There are two meetings to discuss the Old Trails fire, tonight and Thursday at 6 at Shadle Park High School. There are two to talk about the Autumn Lane fire, tonight at 6 at Lakeside High School in Nine Mile Falls, and tomorrow at 6 at Mead High School.
If you can’t attend in person, there are virtual options at the Spokane fires Facebook page and the California Incident Command Team 7 YouTube page.
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Avista says it has restored natural gas service for more than 2,500 customers in former wildfire evacuation areas. It’s about halfway to its goal. The utility’s vegetation management teams are downing and removing trees in areas burned by the fires, especially along Highway 291.
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One of the many inconveniences for Spokane wildfire evacuees has been lack of access to wardrobe. For professionals who are expected to look a certain way, that has been a problem.
Two organizations are stepping in to help.
Spokane Business Association members recently donated several trailers and truckloads of business attire. That was delivered yesterday to the wildfire recovery center at Shadle Park High School.
The second organization, Dress for Success Seattle, is targeting women with its wardrobe-to-go kits.
"People still have to go to work. People still have to they still have to apply for jobs. They still have to go to the interview. And we want to ensure that women in Spokane have what they need to continue to rebuild after this incredible tragedy,"
said Chief Executive Malia Razzaia.
Her company is pulling from its stockpile to create collections tailored to individual women. She says women can visit her company’s website and choose the type of clothes they need. Then a kit will be assembled and shipped to one of three BECU locations in Spokane, where the recipients can pick them up.
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A Spokane nursery that cares for drug-addicted infants and their parents is opening its resource center to people displaced by wildfires.
Maddie’s Place operates Maddie’s Closet. Its family and workforce specialist, Amanda Albert, says the center has supplies for infants: clothes, bottles, diapers and pacifiers. But it also has things families need.
"We like to have items available for them to start making meals and preparing at home. So pots, pans, silverware, plates, dishes, all of those kinds of items, anything really that someone for their first time in an apartment might need in order to kind of make that house more a home,” she said.
Maddie’s Closet will be open this week for displaced families. It accepts new and gently-used donations from the community on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
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Crews continue their work on the two fires burning in the Palouse. The Wells Road fire has been downgraded to about 1,800 acres from 2,000. It’s considered 30% contained. A level 2 evacuation remains in effect for Malden and a level 1 for Rosalia. The Palouse River fire near Colfax is 80% contained. It has charred a little more than 600 acres.
North and west of Spokane, the Hudspeth fire burning near Fruitland is about a third contained. It has burned about 6,500 acres on the east side of the Columbia River, across from the Modrite fire, which has burned for a few weeks in Stevens and Ferry counties. It’s about 60% contained. That’s roughly the containment level for the state’s largest fire, Kaiser Canyon, which is at 138,000 acres on the Colville Indian reservation. A few evacuation levels have been lowered there in the last day or two.
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Residents in Spokane are feeling the impacts of still burning fires that razed hundreds of homes and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate. For some residents, emergency information in Spanish has been a lifeline. As Monica Carrillo-Casas reports, Latino-led community organizations are filling that role while people deal with the losses.
On a hot afternoon, the first Saturday of this month, Haidee Solis’s children were playing outside when she went to check on them. Then she noticed smoke moving quickly toward their Spokane home.
Solis opened an app on her phone that tracks fires. She saw flames had jumped to just blocks away.
SOLIS: “Ya estaban cayendo Ashes y el humo estaba demasiado cerca ya de nosotros.”
BAIRES: “Ash was falling on us and the smoke was getting closer to us.”
She and her husband quickly gathered their three year old daughter and five-year-old son, grabbed a handful of clothes and packed two photos of the kids.
They sat trapped in traffic with a nearly empty tank of gas. They could see the smoke roiling behind them, and then…
SOLIS: ‘Las casas de enfrente empezaron a explotar.’
BAIRES: The houses in front of us started to explode.
As they got out, Solis held onto hope that their home would be spared. But when she returned the next day, she found everything they owned had been reduced to ash.
Their home was among more than 850 buildings in the Spokane area to burn down in a series of fires. Solis has been turning to Spanish-language resources to get help and figure out what’s next. Latino-led community organizations have stepped in to reach people like her directly.
AMBI of radio scene – call sign in spanish.
KYRS is a small community radio station operated out of a library. Its one Spanish language program has become a lifeline for residents impacted by the fires.
On-air, hosts Rafa Zamora and Samantha Peralta move quickly — trading updates, repeating phone numbers and making sure listeners don’t miss critical information.
When the microphones turn off, the pace doesn’t slow down. They scan messages, compare notes and adjust their next segment in real time.
ZAMORA: “We need and deserve to be informed about everything that is happening — in our own language.”
NEUMANN: “Necesitamos y merecemos estar informados en nuestro propio lenguaje.”
As fires spread across Spokane, Zamora tripled the airtime for the show — El Puente: La Voz Latina, or in English, The Bridge: The Latino Voice. It’s the only local program of its kind for over a hundred mile radius.
Zamora says he’s working closely with Latino-led community organizations to connect people with resources - groups like Mujeres in Action, Latinos in Spokane, or Nuestras Raices.
At a warehouse office near downtown Spokane, tables are lined up with fuzzy blankets, diapers, masks and other necessities.
Nuestras Raices Operations Manager, Isabel Mazcot, says the organization began doing Facebook Live updates to reach people.
MAZCOT: One mom came in with her six-month baby the very first hour that we opened since we went live on Facebook. She lost everything. She needed some diapers and we were able to give that.
Solis, another mom who evacuated with her kids right ahead of the fire, says Nuestra Raices connected her with a counselor so she could help her children understand what happened to their house.
SOLIS: Tenemos que hablarles y decirles ¿Sabes qué? Pues ahora nuestro hogar somos nosotros.”
BAIRES: We have to talk to them, and tell them, you know what? Now our home is us.
Solis and her husband own Los Habaneros, a Mexican restaurant in North Spokane. She says their days are filled by keeping the restaurant open and trying to give her kids a sense of normalcy.
It’s at night, when she finally has a moment to sit with her thoughts, that the reality of losing her home sinks in.
Solis says she wishes she could go back to her house, but there’s no going back anymore.
Having help from the community is what has helped her maintain hope.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Lisa Leinberger, Audrey Nelson, Anna Marie Yanny, Monica Carrillo-Casas and me, Doug Nadvornick, today’s host and producer.
Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
Thanks for listening. This is SPR News..
