Today's headlines:
- There’s still time to register to vote if you haven’t, but you’ll have to go in person.
- The Christmas tree that will stand outside the U.S. Capitol is taking a tour through Idaho this month.
- NWPB's Erick Bengel talked to experts who believe this year’s fire season is one of the Northwest’s worst on record.
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In Washington and Idaho, there is still time to register for today’s election. SPR’s Lisa Leinberger has the rules.
If you live in Spokane County and register to vote today, you’ll have to do it in person — either at the County Elections Office, the Spokane Fair & Expo Center or at CenterPlace in Spokane Valley. All three locations are open today — Election Day — from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Election officials say parking is hard to find at the elections office, so the other two locations might be easier.
In other counties, visit your county elections department.
The deadline to register online has already passed.
Once you’ve registered in person, the elections worker will give you a ballot, and you can drop it in a ballot box at that location. This close to the deadline — which is 8 p.m. — you don’t want to send it through the mail.
If you’re in Idaho, you can also register on Election Day — again, only in person. Just visit your polling location. The polls in Idaho close at 8 p.m.
I’m Lisa Leinberger, reporting.
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In other voting access news, the Spokane County voters’ pamphlet is translated and available for Spanish-speaking voters. SPR’s Ember Braun explains where to find it.
Mujeres in Action is the Spokane nonprofit that translates and distributes the guide. This is the second time it’s been done. MiA first reached out to the county elections office in 2024 to start the process.
Sebastian Ruiz is MiA’s Community Policy Liaison.
SEBASTIAN RUIZ: “Partners had talked about how people were interested in just being able to talk to their friends and family members. So it facilitates a conversation, is what we’re seeing.”
The voters’ pamphlet breaks down local propositions, candidates running for Spokane County positions and how to register to vote. Ruiz encourages even those who are unable to vote to still take a look.
SR: “They still have the right to participate in public hearings at City Council or in Olympia. And they still have the right to reach out to elected officials. You may not be able to vote, but there’s nothing barring you from writing a letter to your district officials or writing a letter to your state representatives.”
The guide is available at myvotespokane.org.
I’m Ember Braun, reporting.
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The Christmas tree that will stand on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol this holiday season was harvested in Weippe, Idaho, last month.
The 76-foot-tall Engelmann Spruce has been encased in the back of a big semi truck for its nearly 2,500-mile cross-country tour.
There’s a large banner across the truck people can sign. The top is made of wooden beams and glass so people can see the colorful lights and handmade ornaments covering the green spruce branches.
Forest Service workers attached a bladder that holds 80 gallons of water to keep the tree hydrated, says agency spokesman Cyrus Forman.
CYRUS FORMAN: “We have a team that’s making sure that it’s fed every night and every morning, and right now it’s consuming about 11 gallons a day.”
The tree has scheduled whistle stops throughout Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and the Midwest before arriving at its final destination.
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Also in Idaho, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has paused a lower court ruling that had prevented the state from fully enforcing its abortion ban.
Current Idaho laws prohibit most abortions. Exceptions include cases where the mother’s life is at stake, or when a police report documents rape or incest. Doctors who perform abortions outside those cases are subject to criminal and civil penalties.
The Ninth Circuit's ruling specifically concerns Stacy Seyb, a Boise doctor who challenged Idaho’s laws in U.S. district court. He secured additional exceptions to protect mothers’ physical and mental health. The judge then narrowed the verdict to apply to Seyb only — not all physicians in the state.
After Friday’s Ninth Circuit ruling, Idaho state officials can continue to pursue prosecution against Seyb in cases where he performed abortions to preserve a mother’s health and not her life.
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It may not come as a surprise that the 2026 fire season in the Northwest is one of the worst on record. NWPB's Erick Bengel reports.
At the height of fire season, in late July, on a quiet street in Northeast Walla Walla, I arrive at the home of Kevin Pogue. Pogue’s a retired professor at Whitman College.
KEVIN POGUE: "Hey."
ERICK BENGEL: "Hey, Professor."
He leads me into an office near the back of his house. Books on the American pioneer Daniel Boone share wall space with volumes on wine and champagne.
KP: “This is the new … the new research space…”
Pogue specializes in geology and terroir. But he has also taught meteorology — the study of the atmosphere and weather patterns.
Pogue is the man behind the Walla Walla Valley Earth Science Facebook page, which has about 2,700 followers.
KP: “I don’t see myself as everybody’s daily weatherman. I see myself as the guy that might explain why something weird’s happening today.”
He pulls up websites like Netweather and NASA Worldview. And a site that Pogue considers a classic: the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Pendleton.
KP: “You know, if I was to say, you know, there’s one site everyone in Walla Walla should go to and check regularly, it would be this.”
As this year’s fire season played out, he explained to his Facebook followers why there was so much smoke in the air and where it was coming from. Sometimes the smoke was from local fires, like the Hagen and Paradise fires. But not always.
KP: “We’re also getting a lot of smoke, especially higher in the atmosphere, from all these fires down in the Ochoco Mountains, sort of in Central Oregon.”
There were also fires in the North Cascade Mountains along the Canadian border. And in British Columbia. And all over Oregon.
Wildfire smoke that pours into the Walla Walla Valley often just lingers. The valley lies within the Columbia River Basin — a bowl within a bowl, as Pogue calls it.
KP: “All these are contributing smoke — this big fire over here in the Cascades is contributing smoke...”
The 2026 fire season in the Pacific Northwest has been devastating.
During the summer, almost a million acres burned in Washington state. And in Oregon, fires burned well over 2 million acres.
The season got off to a rough start.
The western U.S. saw very low moisture and low snowpack. This allowed vegetation to dry out much earlier than usual.
The fire fuels were in place.
July then saw major lightning incidents.
Then came the wind.
Jon Bonk, a meteorologist with the National Interagency Coordination Center, puts it this way:
JON BONK: “We had kind of the one-two punch that mother nature provided with igniting new fires and then putting a bunch of wind behind it to cause them to grow very rapidly.”
August 1 brought what Bonk calls a capstone wind event.
That’s the day many fires grew. And it’s the day a man in Spokane allegedly decided to set a fire that destroyed hundreds of homes.
Firefighter Ryan Rodruck is the wildfire communications manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. In Spokane, he learned a new term he hopes to never hear again: “urban conflagration.”
RYAN RODRUCK: “The way that that fire moved, and the level of destruction on the landscape, was something I had not seen before in my career.”
Rodruck also saw success stories.
RR: “You know, 65,000 people in the Spokane area evacuated in about an hour, with no injuries or fatalities. You know, neighbors helping neighbors…”
Now, at higher elevations, fire season is over, Rodruck says. Snow is beginning to appear in the mountains. But at lower elevations, fire season is ongoing.
RYAN: “Mostly it’s just small initial-attack fires right now, things like escaped burn piles...”
He says that only when there’s a big rain or snow will fire season finally be behind us.
In Walla Walla, I’m Erick Bengel.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Lisa Leinberger, Ember Braun, Boise State Public Radio’s Lauren Paterson, NWPB’s Erick Bengel and Audrey Nelson, today’s host and producer.
Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
