{"id":219291,"date":"2026-08-03T16:54:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/more-than-600-structures-lost-as-tens-of-thousands-evacuate-in-washington-state-wildfires-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T16:54:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:54:20","slug":"more-than-600-structures-lost-as-tens-of-thousands-evacuate-in-washington-state-wildfires-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/more-than-600-structures-lost-as-tens-of-thousands-evacuate-in-washington-state-wildfires-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 600 structures lost as tens of thousands evacuate in Washington state wildfires – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
Wildfires in the Spokane, Washington, region continued burning Sunday, destroying more than 600 structures and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
The three blazes, collectively called the Spokane Complex Fire, have burned 8,026 acres and are zero percent contained, according to a federal incident management team coordinating the response.
No injuries have been reported in any of the fires.
The fires are \u201creally the worst natural disaster our region has faced,\u201d Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.
The Spokane Complex Fire includes the Old Trails Fire, which has burned 3,619 acres; the Fairview Fire, which has burned 1,056 acres; and the Autumn Lane Fire, which has consumed 3,351 acres, according to federal incident management.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the fires were caused by \u201ca historic weather event,\u201d as the National Weather Service called for elevated fire weather Sunday, including north-northwest winds up to 35 mph and dry conditions that will quickly fuel flames.
The Spokane Complex Fire is \u201cthe top fire in the nation,\u201d 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. \u201cHe expressed his support for what the people are going through,\u201d Ferguson said at Sunday\u2019s 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\u2019s news conference.
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 \u2014 California-based incident management teams 4 and 7.
\u201cThis deployment marks a historic milestone \u2014 the first time a CAL FIRE Incident Management Team has been activated to the State of Washington,\u201d 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. \u201cWe are so grateful for you,\u201d 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<\/a>.
Evacuations in Spokane County remained in effect, and a new mandatory evacuation was issued for parts of Stevens County<\/a> 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.
\u201cNot every house was destroyed, but a lot of them were,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like this before. I\u2019ve lived in Spokane my whole life, and I\u2019m 55 years old.\u201d
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.
A woman whose Indian Trail home of more than 21 years was a smoking pile of rubble told NBC affiliate KHQ<\/a> that her family is safe but that children\u2019s mementos were lost.
\u201cEverything from their upbringing is gone,\u201d said the resident, who gave her name as Angela.
In the same cul-de-sac, at least six houses were razed, while others appeared to stand unscathed, including the house next to Angela\u2019s.
Around the area, evacuated residents were stunned by the scale of destruction.
In a video on Facebook, a motorist canvassed the streets of Indian Trail as fires consumed properties and cars on both sides of the road. The driver, Travis Campbell, told NBC News that he shot the video around 8 p.m. Saturday.
\u201cI drove over to that area to see what was going on and couldn\u2019t believe my eyes,\u201d Campbell said.
Temperatures were 10 degrees cooler than normal Sunday, though dry conditions and winds are expected to remain. Temperatures are also forecast to rise again during the workweek.
\u201cWe will get through this,\u201d Brown, the mayor, said Sunday.
Shayna Jacobs is a national reporter for NBC News digital.
Nollaig O'Connor is a senior reporter for NBC News' Social Newsgathering team based in New York.
Dennis Romero is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeWildfires in the Spokane, Washington, region continued burning Sunday, destroying more than 600 structures and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.The three blazes, collectively called the Spokane Complex Fire, have burned 8,026 acres and are zero percent contained, according to a federal incident management team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}