Wildfires drive evacuation orders for Washington state residents

HUNDREDS of residents north and west of Spokane have been told to flee their homes after stiff, dry winds fanned wildfire flames throughout the region in eastern Washington state. 

As of about 4 a.m. local time, the Fairview fire just north of the city had grown to 981 acres (400 hectares), while the larger Old Trails incident had consumed 3,509 acres through Saturday night, the Washington Department of Natural Resources said on its website.

“Leave now! This may be your only notice,” an emergency alert warned residents. People “must leave now due to life-threatening conditions in your area!”

Emergency centres were set up at the Spokane Convention Centre and the local fairgrounds on Saturday night to accommodate residents with recreational vehicles and those who had taken their animals and pets with them, according to the city. Due to wind-driven smoke lowering visibility, residents to the north and west were advised to stay at home unless they were evacuating the area.

The Spokane area is home to about 600,000 residents. 

For weeks, fires across the Pacific Northwest have burned thousands of acres and sent plumes of acrid smoke into the sky, causing air quality alerts throughout the area and further afield across the US and Canada.

Power has been shut off to residents around Spokane, as well as further south, to prevent electric equipment from sparking wildfires, Avista Corp., which provides service to four states, said on its website. The company operates 2,300 miles (3,700 km) of transmission lines through the region.

Across Washington, more than 17,600 residents were without power early Sunday, including more than 13,400 in Spokane County, according to PowerOutage.com.

Governor Bob Ferguson on Saturday declared a statewide emergency and an outdoor burn ban through September due to the ongoing drought, immediate weather conditions, and fires.

Elevated fire-weather conditions will persist across eastern Washington and parts of 12 other states as dry winds sweep the area, the US Storm Prediction Centre said. Parts of Montana, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming face a critical, or level 2, risk of fires on Sunday. 

In Spokane, temperatures were forecast to reach 78F (25.5 °C) on Sunday with winds gusting up to 21 miles (34 km) per hour and smoke filling the skies, the National Weather Service said.

There are currently 10 large fires around Washington and through July 29, 1,038 blazes had burned 426,666 acres, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources website.

An area roughly half the size of Rhode Island has burned so far this year, Dave Upthegrove, Washington’s commissioner of public lands, said in a statement on Friday. Crews from 14 states, besides Australia, have been fighting the blazes along with troops from the Washington National Guard. 

“As a state, we’ve already hit the fifth largest amount of acres burned this century,” Upthegrove said.