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Wildfires near Spokane destroy more than 700 buildings, force 64,000 to flee

04 August 2026 05:08 (UTC +04:00)

Wildfires raging on the outskirts of Spokane, Washington, for a third day have destroyed at least 700 buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in and around the state's second-most populous city, officials said on Monday, Reuters reports.

The cluster ‌of three blazes ranked as the top firefighting priority in the U.S. as a whole, including the drought-parched Pacific Northwest, where dozens of major wildfires have been burning for weeks, degrading air quality across a wide region.

The Spokane-area fires have scorched more than 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares) since erupting on Saturday on the northern fringe of the city, home to about 230,000 residents west of the Rocky Mountain foothills near the Idaho border.

Video footage from the fire zone showed a miles-long column of smoke creeping through treetops as airplane tankers swooped overhead, dropping scarlet-colored fire-retardant slurries onto the blaze.

Enormous palls of smoke billowed into the sky north of the city, as flames devoured forest land 6 miles (10 km) from Spokane's downtown. Elsewhere, suburban homes lay in smoking ruins among charred trees. Other video showed fires burning along wooded ⁠ridge lines above adjacent dwellings.

As of Monday, some 64,000 people were under immediate evacuation orders, up from 4,000 a day earlier, according to Benjamin Cossel, a spokesperson for the incident command center.

At least 700 structures have gone up in flames, mostly in residential areas, and aerial infrared surveys showed that possibly another 400 buildings, including homes, had been damaged or destroyed, Cossel said.

The cause of the blazes was under investigation.