Droves of people on Sunday witnessed the historic devastation left behind after a raging wildfire raced into the city of Spokane, reducing neighborhoods to piles of charred brick and twisted metal.
“Nothing has sunk in yet. I am still processing it,” said Sheri Clark, who stood in what used to be her driveway in the Indian Trail Neighborhood on Sunday.
She stared at her tomato plants, which on Saturday had been ripened red and perfect for picking. The tomatoes had instead melted into mush from the heat and dropped from the wilted vine.
They were the only drop of color next to what used to be her home, now a cluster of black and white rubble. Nearly every home around her met the same fate.
“This is what I imagine a war zone is like,” Clark said. “It feels unreal.”
The nearly 4,000-acre Old Trails fire sparked north of Airway Heights and jumped the Spokane River. That and two other fires in Spokane County forced 60,000 evacuations, threatening more than 14,000 structures within the city’s evacuation boundaries.
The wind-driven blaze displayed extreme fire behavior, something fire and weather officials predicted earlier in the week. Assistant Spokane Fire Chief Lance Dahl said at a news conference late Saturday that the devastation was nearly unstoppable.
“There is not a fire department in the United States that can handle a wind-driven event this size,” he said.
