Thousands of working families fled their homes Saturday as a wind-driven wildfire jumped the Spokane River and tore through residential neighborhoods — the inevitable consequence of decades of forest policy that banned logging and controlled burns and left public land choked with fuel.
The Old Trails Fire exploded from the West Plains across Riverside State Park and into northwest Spokane, destroying homes along North Indian Trail Road and forcing mass evacuations in what officials called one of the worst fire disasters in the city's history. By Saturday evening the blaze had ballooned to 3,509 acres and remained zero percent contained, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Walls of flame consumed home after home. Loud explosions echoed through the smoke as structures and trees ignited. Firefighters yelled at residents to run. "When the sun sets and the sun rises, we are going to be in shock," warned Maj. Gen. Gent Welsh, Washington's adjutant general, who told reporters the fire conditions were the worst he has seen in 38 years.
Mayor Lisa Brown declared a state of emergency. Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a statewide wildfire emergency and activated the National Guard. The National Weather Service issued Eastern Washington's first-ever "Particularly Dangerous Situation" Red Flag Warning — a designation reserved for the most extreme fire weather, when strong winds, low humidity, and dry vegetation create conditions for explosive growth.
Dry vegetation. That phrase does a lot of quiet work in official statements. Washington Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove called the fire season "extraordinary" and "not normal." What went unmentioned: state and federal land managers spent decades suppressing fire, banning timber harvests, and blocking prescribed burns across millions of acres of overstocked Inland Northwest forest. Riverside State Park — the corridor the Old Trails Fire used to cross the river into the city — is managed public land. The fuel was allowed to accumulate. The fire used it.
Level 3 "go now" evacuation orders hit just before 3:30 p.m. and kept expanding through the evening, affecting thousands within city limits. The Spokane Convention Center became the primary evacuation hub after power failed at an earlier shelter at Spokane Falls Community College. Buses unloaded residents from nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The Spokane County Fair and Expo Center opened space for RVs and evacuated animals.
Sheriff John Nowels said evacuees should prepare to be kept from their homes for at least 24 to 36 hours — and warned that too many residents were refusing to leave. Assistant Fire Chief Lance Dahl asked people not to turn on their sprinklers, saying water pressure was already failing across the system.
"I will tell you in a wind-driven event there is not a fire department in the U.S. that can handle a wind-driven event this size," Dahl said. He had roughly 100 firefighters on duty Saturday — about 30 above the normal shift — preparation that proved no match for a forest turned to kindling.
The New York Post framed the disaster as a "hellscape" and emphasized terrifying video of the inferno. The Spokesman-Review provided ground-level detail on the chaos and the strain on city infrastructure. Neither outlet touched the forest management question that will determine whether this happens again.
The Old Trails Fire was one of several blazes burning across the Spokane area Saturday, including the Fairview Fire near Mead and the Autumn Lane Fire near Nine Mile Falls. The cause remains under investigation. The policy failure that loaded the landscape with fuel is not under investigation at all.
Ordinary Spokane families will rebuild — if they can afford to — while the officials and green groups who championed the policies that set the table for this disaster will hold press conferences and ask for more of the same. The question is whether anyone in authority will own the consequences of a generation's worth of forest mismanagement before the next wind event, the next dry season, the next neighborhood turned to ash.
