The Spokane Complex Fire is “the top fire in the nation,” Cantwell said.
Officials said 60,000 people within Spokane city limits have been evacuated. Spokane County Fire District 3 Fire Chief Cody Rohrbach said 640 structures were destroyed in the Old Trails Fire alone.
Authorities have not yet determined how many of the structures damaged or destroyed are homes, businesses or schools.
Gov. Bob Ferguson said he spoke with President Donald Trump on the phone. “He expressed his support for what the people are going through,” Ferguson said at Sunday’s news conference.
Ferguson declared a statewide emergency Saturday that prohibits most outdoor and agricultural burning. He said that a request for immediate Federal Emergency Management Agency support has been made and that another request for recovery funds was underway.
Fifteen wildfires were burning across the state, consuming 250,000 acres, state Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove said at Sunday’s news conference.
Wildfire smoke in Spokane, Wash., on Saturday.Tyler Vanwert via Reuters
Federal Interagency Incident Management Teams assumed command of the Spokane Complex Fire after federal deployment began Friday. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, is coordinating two of the national crews — California-based incident management teams 4 and 7.
“This deployment marks a historic milestone — the first time a CAL FIRE Incident Management Team has been activated to the State of Washington,” the department said in a statement Friday.
The fight against major fires across the country is often coordinated by the National Interagency Coordination Center and staffed by personnel from a combination of federal, tribal, state, local and territorial agencies.
Brown said there were first responders in her city who have been working as many as 30 hours straight. “We are so grateful for you,” she said.
Nearly 12,000 utility customers in Washington, the vast majority of them in Spokane, were without power Sunday, according to the utility tracker PowerOutage.us.
Evacuations in Spokane County remained in effect, and a new mandatory evacuation was issued for parts of Stevens County near the Spokane River on Sunday afternoon.
Corey Hobson, a resident of the North Indian Trail neighborhood of Spokane, posted a video to Facebook on Saturday showing charred trees and blackened ground.
“Not every house was destroyed, but a lot of them were,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I’ve lived in Spokane my whole life, and I’m 55 years old.”
Several social media posts verified by NBC News showed a sports complex with smoke looming in the background before it became engulfed in flames Saturday.
In another clip, people competed with harsh winds to set up a tent encampment on a soccer field and children entertained themselves on a nearby jungle gym.
