This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will continue the process of removing hazardous materials from Spokane’s fire-damaged homes.
Those materials include paint, batteries and pesticides. The EPA provides the removal service free of charge in the wake of major disasters.
Deputy incident commander Joni Sandoval said the EPA used damage assessments and field reports to identify 825 Spokane homes in need of the agency’s services. So far, crews have cleared dangerous materials from more than half of those homes.
According to Sandoval, crews aim to work as quickly and safely as possible. Sometimes they must remove structural dangers — such as fire-impacted trees, chimneys and large walls — before conducting removals.
“With those and basements, those are the kinds of things that would require our high hazard teams to come in and help us ensure that the area is safe for our teams to enter,” Sandoval said.
Once crews can safely enter home sites, they remove toxic materials and send them to state-approved landfills and incinerators.
“They don’t all go to the same place,” Sandoval said. “It depends on the type of waste.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has given the EPA 60 days to complete its work. Sandoval said she anticipates her crews finishing on time, if not earlier.
