‘It doesn’t seem real’: Spokane is a community in mourning as the toll of destruction from weekend wildfires comes into focus

Each neighbor wears the shock differently.

Some evacuees slowly returned to the neighborhood surrounding Rifle Club Road on Monday to find what both civilians and the state’s adjutant general described as a “war zone.” Leveled homes span blocks as far as the eye can see.

Some pilfered through the ashen remains of all their belongings solemnly and listlessly, as if unsure where to start. Others came to the wreckage with a mission: recover the safe storing family jewelry, size up the damage for a loved one, turn on a sprinkler – if there’s anything left to defend.

A pair of recently returning evacuees dragged their suitcases through the smoky streets, faces contorting in incredulous pain as they soaked in the past couple of days. Another neighbor couldn’t begin to process her leveled home. Somewhere in the ash are the remains of dogs she couldn’t return in time to save.

Meanwhile, Doug Howie couldn’t knock the crooked grin off his face, even standing in the wreckage of the “perfect” home he bought with his wife just a year ago. He cracked jokes about lawn care no longer needed and swearing the shed he’d just built in the back was pristine.

“I might as well have a good time on this magic carpet ride,” he said.

James Ashlock understood.

“It doesn’t really register; it doesn’t seem real,” said Ashlock, who also lost his home down the block. “So you just kind of have to make jokes.”

Howie ’s and Ashlock’s homes are among the more than 700 structures lost from the weekend fires in Spokane County. Officials at a news conference Monday said another 400 properties need to be further evaluated.

Law enforcement officials also are searching for 14 people in the aftermath of massive fires that burned hundreds of homes, but no deaths have been reported, Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said.

Nowels said the county received 290 reports of people asking for help evacuating loved ones or themselves. Investigators had located all but 14 from those reports as of Monday morning.

Deputies are trying to reach them, but Nowels stressed these are not missing people.

“I do not want people to think that we have 14 missing people. These are people who may have called for help evacuating and many of them likely did get evacuated,” he said. “With poor cellphone coverage, cellphone batteries die, or they get to some place where they do find shelter, and we haven’t been able to reach them by phone.”

“They are people we are just trying to confirm are fine,” Nowels added.

The three major fires in the area – Old Trails in Northwest Spokane, Autumn Lane in the Suncrest area and Fairview in Mead – are burning over a combined 10,000 acres as of Monday night, according to Inciweb.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown warned that Level 3 “go now” evacuation areas remain dangerous.

Brown asked evacuees for patience. Authorities have no timeline on when people can return to their homes or the charred remains.

It could be a week or even weeks, she said.

“We don’t know,” Brown said. “It’s neighborhood by neighborhood and block by block. And so we really want you to just pay attention. They are regularly re-evaluating the situation, the weather, the fire and the potential for things to reignite.”

Tom Clemo, an incident commander assigned to the area, said 67,000 people evacuated because of the fires.

Clemo said Monday’s focus was stopping the spread of the Autumn Lane fire and on structure protection within the footprints of the Old Trails and Fairview fires.

“We’ve got some of our best firefighters on the ground, hot shots, they’re in there as well. Every resource that we have available, we’re moving to that section,” Clemo said. “I’ll also remind you, we still have two large fire footprints with active fire interior to them, and the last thing we want to do is have a burnt home and the embers of that home ignite a neighbor, and so we’re in the process of trying to cover all those bases at the same time.”

Clemo estimated that among the three blazes, tens of thousands of structures still are at risk of burning.

There have been no arrests on suspicion of looting or theft, both Nowels and Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall said.

“At this point, no founded reports of looting or property theft,” Hall said.

Nowels said his deputies arrested someone in a fire area Saturday afternoon with an active arrest warrant and “no reason to be up in the area,” but they weren’t suspected of looting.

Gov. Bob Ferguson’s request for Federal Emergency Management Agency aid hasn’t been granted, but agency officials told him Monday morning they’re already beginning to mobilize resources for if and when funding is approved.

Ferguson’s request for federal assistance encompasses the six counties of Spokane, Stevens, Chelan, Yakima, Okanogan and Ferry, and the Spokane, Colville and Yakima tribes due to the wildfires burning in the state.

“The type of direct federal assistance would include search and rescue, debris removal, medical supplies, assistance, temporary sheltering, emergency power,” Ferguson said.

Though pending, Maj. Gen. Gent Welsh, adjutant general of the Washington National Guard, said the governor’s request is moving “breathtakingly fast.”

“It’s moving at a pace that generally the system doesn’t move at,” he said.

Scenes across northwest Spokane showed the charred remains of homes, cars and natural areas, some still smoking days later.

“I moved to a lot of places around the world, not so good places around the world,” Welsh said. “I can tell you today that that’s a war zone.”

Amanda Sullender contributed to this report.