Today's headlines:
- Federal and Washington state teams today will begin removing hazardous household materials from burned homes in the Spokane area.
- We hear one of the many stories of evacuating vulnerable people out of harms way of the Spokane fires.
- Washington state is offering grants for people who need help with expenses because of the fires.
- The founder of a northeast Washington organization that helps and honors military veterans talks about collecting everyday goods for wildfire survivors.
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This morning, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology start cleanup of hazardous household materials in Spokane.
Homes destroyed by wildfires must have these materials removed before the owners can move forward with construction.
Brooks Stanfield is an EPA incident commander. He laid out a list of materials crews could find that pose a hazard.
STANFIELD: You know, we run into a lot of paint, paint cleaners, solvents, compressed gas cylinders for people who like to weld or, you know, acetylene tanks, propane tanks.
He says those tanks could still be under pressure and need to be handled with care.
Stanfield says there is nothing residents need to do to receive this required service.
There are some residents with locked gates to their properties. If you have a locked gate and need to grant workers access, you can call the EPA Hotline at 1-888-509-0667.
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Spokane residents experienced this month’s wildfires both collectively and individually. The collective part comes in the community response.
But each family involved had a different experience.
For hundreds of people, that experience involved the Spokane Transit Authority as they were evacuated from potentially dangerous areas. One woman who helped to supervise the evacuation had been in a similar situation. Erick Bengel from Northwest Public Broadcasting reports.
Sarah Addington is a supervisor at the Spokane Transit Authority. Three years ago, she was in the communications role when the Gray Fire burned through the nearby city of Medical Lake. Supervisors like Addington frequently change shifts and rotate positions. Yet she found herself in the same role when the Old Trails Fire erupted on August First.
SARAH ADDINGTON: “My first thought was, ‘I wonder if this is going to be very similar.’ And it was.”
For both fires, she was responsible for coordinating evacuations. This time, though, one of the people she had to evacuate was her 71-year-old father. He was being treated for Parkinson’s disease at the nearby veterans medical center and was put on a bus along with other VA patients and taken to safety.
SARAH ADDINGTON: “...It sort of just put it into perspective — that it’s not just people we’re getting onto a bus, it’s someone’s dad, grandfather, mother, nurses, doctors, whoever needed to be evacuated at that moment.
Even though Addington was the focal point of communications that day, she gives credit to her co-workers who also stepped up.
SARAH ADDINGTON: “My specific shift that day may have been at the center of it, but it is a whole team.”
The Spokane Transit Authority helped evacuate more than 800 people that day. In Walla Walla, I’m Erick Bengel.
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Washington state says it has money available for people who need financial help with living expenses because of wildfires.
The Military Department says it’s offering grants up to $750 for individuals, with a max of $2,250 for families of five or more.
The state says recipients can use the money for things like alternative housing, food and other everyday needs.
There are conditions. Applicants must live in one of the counties where an emergency has been declared. Those are Spokane, Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan, Chelan, Douglas and Yakima. Or they must be residents of lands owned by the Spokane, Colville or Yakama tribes. They also must prove their main homes were damaged or destroyed by wildfires that began on August 1 or later.
You can begin the process at the state Military Department website.
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Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Spokane) has introduced a federal bill that would ban betting on wildfires.
If passed, his Wildfire Event Contract Prohibition Act would block prediction market platforms from listing all wildfire-related contracts.
Last year, the prediction market platform Polymarket accepted $1.2 million in bets connected to California’s Palisades and Eaton wildfires. Since then, Baumgartner and other lawmakers have raised concerns that allowing people to bet on wildfires could incentivize arson.
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The Washington State Library has a new leader… And she wants its collection to be in a more visible location. More from KNKX reporter Freddy Monares.
Melody Sky Weaver was recently appointed as the official librarian of Washington State.
The state library archives newspapers, government documents… and a collection of historic records that predates statehood. Weaver wants to move the library from Tumwater to the Capitol Campus in Olympia.
MELODY SKY WEAVER: "Our incredible territorial collection right now is in a vault that not many people get to see."
The public has had limited access to the Tumwater building since last year due to budget cuts.
One of Weaver’s goals is to restore funding to the library, which she says would be easier to do if the building was located in Olympia.
MELODY SKY WEAVER: "These shouldn't be our best kept secret. I I really want to make sure that our state residents can feel great pride in the collection that we have, and they have to be able to see it. It has to be showcased in a great location."
Weaver's first day on the job is October 1..
In Seattle, I'm Freddy Monares.
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Western health officials say the new federal order on vaccines will have no effect on the guidelines it issues to providers.
The West Coast Health Alliance recently issued a statement saying it relies on guidelines from trusted medical organizations. It says those guidelines represent broad consensus from the health care community.
The White House recently issued an executive order saying children should have fewer vaccines. It removed its endorsement of vaccines for COVID, the flu and hepatitis B.
The alliance says that order does not change its past recommendations.
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The Spokane Complex Fires have impacted a large number of families. Getting them back on their feet will be a long-term effort. Heroes Homestead is an eastern Washington organization that has focused on that mission. SPR’s Kyrsten Weber spoke with founder Danielle Holstine,
the wife of a Marine veteran.
DANIELLE: Hero's Homestead serves our veterans and military families in their return from military service, and it's to help them find mission and purpose past their military time. And what we've found in past fires, as well as like Oregon Road and Corkscrew, is how quickly they can mobilize and get into action to help safeguard fire victims. And whether that's safeguarding their homes or at the aftercare, that takes course after wildfires.
And we saw that even more so with the Spokane fire. So we were already doing a drive through the Lithia dealerships for our firefighters in preparation for this season. But on August 1st, when those fires took over most of Spokane, we had an immediate response from our veteran community that they were texting and calling in and saying, how can we help? We're made for this.
We're trained for this. Tell me where to go and how to be a fate. So we went into overdrive with Lithia dealerships, and they responded greatly, and they extended their drive for firefighter, veteran, and fire victims donation drive.
KYRSTEN: If folks in the Inland Northwest are looking for somewhere to donate physical goods, what exactly are you looking for?
D: So we're doing a phased response. So we did clothing and toiletry, and we'll still take those items, but they do need to be newer. And then additionally, we are moving into school supplies.
And then we're also taking housewares. We're thinking like a laundry basket full of towels, linens, fresh, brand new pillows, something that would help someone get a shower and a fresh night of sleep in their new apartment. There's larger furniture items.
We will take them, but we do need to set up a time for delivery at our warehouse.
K: What are the most urgent needs right now?
D: Right now, it would really be that laundry basket setup where we're giving them an emergency night sleep and a shower in a new home. And then it could be bed frames.
It could be, you know, refrigerator. So you can call us at 509-251-5565, and then you set up a drop-off with us, and we'll take those items right out of your truck, put them into a warehouse, and then get pictures up online of things that fire victims could utilize right away. Oftentimes, we're pairing them with rehoming plans for victims.
So they can apply on our website if they're needing placement in a home or they need resources at heroeshomestead.org.
K: Are there places that folks can drop off donations right now?
D: They can, but they can't take the larger furniture, but they can take smaller items at all the Lithia dealerships in town, which is the Subaru, Camp, and then also Lithia on the North Division. You can arrange the furniture with Heroes directly, and we'll pair those up with homeowners that are stepping into a new apartment or a rental.
K: The folks who are benefiting from this, I understand, go beyond veterans, correct?
D: It is. So we're mobilizing our veterans to help. They're really good at helping get logistics moved quickly. They are masterminds at knowing how to get large equipment moved.
So we are definitely mobilizing. There are many veterans without homes, but we are serving all victims of fire, and that's made possible by our many partnerships.
K: Outside of this wildfire relief effort, what other resources does Heroes Homestead provide?
D: Heroes Homestead is the circle of return back into civilian life for our veterans.
It's helping the family members and the community understand how these men and women have been trained and the skill sets that they have. Oftentimes, the expectation is on our veterans to adapt back into civilian culture, and while that's important, I think it's also important that our American culture receives back these men and women the way that we've trained them to protect our country. And so finding places and ways to embrace who they are, letting them be involved in crisis disaster relief is a perfect way to say we acknowledge your leadership, we recognize your grit, and we need your help, and we welcome you at the table to help.
K: Talk to me a little bit about the distribution process, because there are places like Spokane and Second Harvest that are receiving donations, but there are a lot of places that don't have a distribution network set up.
D: So we are working, and we're just days away from announcing where that location will be, but we are working on a partnership distribution where we're inviting all of the organizations and companies within Spokane that have been collecting to partner with us in either the warehouse storage part, we can store your items and put them into our distribution, or you can join us on the distribution side, which is a community storefront, and you can share your resources for your organization and then help serve people as they come in for supplies. And this will be a community place that all fire victims can come in and just be in a safe place for the next couple years and be resourced by a plethora of people serving them from Spokane all the way to housing.
So how does this insurance thing really work out now that I filed it and all of the in-betweens, as well as counseling services for everyone from children all the way up, because we just understand that crisis is not something that you blink an eye and get a new apartment in and feel recovered, but that it's a process and we want them to know that Spokane is still your home and we see that it's not a building that makes it a home, but it's a community.
That’s Danielle Holstine with Heroes Homestead, which is looking for donations of smaller housewares, linens, dishes, and more. You can take those to local Lithia Dealerships. For larger items, contact the organization through its website at Heroes Homestead dot org.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Lisa Leinberger, Erick Bengel, Audrey Nelson, Freddy Monares, Kyrsten Weber and Doug Nadvornick, today’s host and producer.
Thanks for listening. This is SPR News.
Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
