{"id":5234,"date":"2026-08-08T19:04:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5234"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:04:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:04:42","slug":"spokane-shows-new-era-of-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5234","title":{"rendered":"Spokane Shows What the New Era of Wildfires Looks Like"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThis fire, and what we\u2019re expecting to come, makes no sense unless you connect the dots through a changing climate,\u201d said Bob Freitag, who recently served as director of the Institute of Hazards Mitigation Research and Planning at the University of Washington. \u201cThe science is known, and this is not something that is a one-off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">According to Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, a lack of snowfall across the region helped set the stage for these fires. Normally, snowpack builds up during the winter and melts gradually through the rest of the year, providing a steady source of moisture. This year, the already-small snowpack was hit with hot spring temperatures, causing this reserve to melt early and leaving the landscape parched. Spokane had half of the typical snowfall this year, Pastelok said. Other parts of the state had even less, with many areas reaching historic lows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In the past few days, powerful winds carried hot embers from the Little Giant fire, a 70,000-acre blaze in central Washington, for more than 3 miles, sending the flames clear over the waters of Lake Chelan and into the forests on the other side. Ryan Rodruck, a communications manager at the Washington Department of Natural Resources, called the overall situation \u201cextremely tragic\u201d and said that it had been an exceptionally challenging season for the thousands of wildland firefighters deployed across the state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In Spokane, more high winds forecast for this weekend could further worsen conditions, said Benjamin Cossel, a wildfire public information officer from California working with firefighting crews in the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The situation is comparable to the Los Angeles fires in 2025, Cossel said. Both outbreaks began in wild areas before moving into partially forested suburban neighborhoods. The urban setting also makes the smoke especially toxic, he said. A recently released study found that the Los Angeles fires, which sent more than 200,000 residents fleeing, had exposed an estimated 3.3 million people to high concentrations of a cancer-causing toxin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Klitzke, the city council member, said the affected neighborhoods in Spokane were known to be vulnerable to fires. Steep terrain and abundant plant life helped the fires spread quickly over the weekend, while the winding cul-de-sac layouts of the neighborhoods slowed evacuations and made it difficult for emergency responders to reach the fires.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThese are neighborhoods with thousands of people and only two ways in or out,\u201d Klitzke said, adding that many evacuees were stuck waiting in traffic for hours, watching the houses around them burn down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Areas where homes mingle with natural areas are known as the wildland-urban interface. This kind of suburban housing is the fastest growing type of land development in the United States, and <a href=\"https:\/\/research.fs.usda.gov\/nrs\/articles\/where-humans-and-forests-meet-rapidly-growing-wildland-urban-interface\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">research shows<\/a> that the homes built in these areas are more likely to burn down when wildfires spread.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWe already knew that this was a dangerous situation,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to get really serious about addressing climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Increasingly, fire-prone states like California are requiring homeowners to clear the trees and shrubs in a radius surrounding their home. This buffer zone, known as a defensible space, can dramatically reduce the risk that a wildfire will ignite a building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">People chose to live in these neighborhoods precisely because they love the vegetation, Cossel said. \u201cI understand why people don\u2019t want to remove them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we can\u2019t live in that world anymore because of these fires.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\"><em>This story was originally published by <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/wildfires\/wildfire-season-spokane-washington-state-climate\/\" class=\"external-link text link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/grist.org\/wildfires\/wildfire-season-spokane-washington-state-climate\/&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/wildfires\/wildfire-season-spokane-washington-state-climate\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Grist<\/a> and\u00a0is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.climatedesk.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">Climate Desk<\/a>\u00a0collaboration.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/spokane-shows-new-era-of-wildfires\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThis fire, and what we\u2019re expecting to come, makes no sense unless you connect the dots through a changing climate,\u201d said Bob Freitag, who recently served as director of the Institute of Hazards Mitigation Research and Planning at the University of Washington. \u201cThe science is known, and this is not something that is a one-off.\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[96,755,1127,427,98],"class_list":["post-5234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-desk","tag-disasters","tag-extreme-weather","tag-wildfires"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Spokane Shows What the New Era of Wildfires Looks Like - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With rising temperatures and drier conditions, fires are more likely to explode. 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