What have first responders learned a year after the Gray and Oregon Road fires?

The Gray and Oregon Road fires in Spokane County last year reminded first responders that they are at the mercy of Mother Nature – and they likely will be again.

The moment Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels realized he had a newfound sort of “respect” for fire and its sometimes unpredictable, reasonless behavior, was when he was driving through Medical Lake on the first day of the Gray fire. He shouldn’t have been there, he said – it was too dangerous, but he was trying to get to a command post as quickly as possible.

“We got into a spot where we had fire going over the top of my car,” Nowels said. “I (later) drove through the neighborhoods at night and wondered about the randomness of it. I saw two homes burned down and in between, one was still standing. It was such a surreal environment … We try to morph fire into thinking and feeling. It doesn’t. We look for reason when there isn’t any.”

Since, the sheriff’s office has installed a new software to aid with evacuations. The Department of Natural Resources now can send aircraft to local fire districts directly. Funding passed by the Legislature to aid in wildfire response is consistently being utilized. At-risk areas have been examined, trees were trimmed and brush was cleared.

The two fires started in Medical Lake and Elk within hours of one another on Aug. 18, 2023. They burned almost 21,000 acres of the county and left two people dead – a “wakeup call” for the entire state of Washington, said Hillary Franz, the state’s public lands commissioner.

Fifteen other fires began in the state that day, taking up a significant amount of resources.

During that period, local fire districts were unable to call in aircraft from DNR directly. It was a timely process, especially for a fire rapidly spreading – districts were required to get authorization from the State Fire Mobilization Unit and then ask DNR for the aircraft.

“Timing is everything in a fire,” Franz said. “All of that takes time.”

A year later, firefighters are now able to call the interagency dispatch center directly and order an aircraft, largely due to the passage of HB 1498. The bill, which Franz worked on with local lawmakers, effectively cuts out the “middle man” to save time during the initial attack phase of a wildfire. The sooner the better, she said.

So far, DNR has been able to keep 95% of the state’s fires under 10 acres for the past two years, thanks to the amount of air resources scattered around the state. In total, DNR owns 12 aircrafts and have 44 of them available for use – a jump from 40 aircraft in 2023.

Washington is also cutting its 10-year average of 400,000 acreage burned in half. In the past two years, the state has seen around 180,000 acres burned, according to department spokesperson Ryan Rodruck.

But there’s more to be done.

For too long, residents in or near urban areas in Washington also thought they were immune to wildfire because of the belief that fires only happen in rural areas. That isn’t the case, Franz said. The Department of Natural Resources predicted for years that wildfires near urban areas will only get worse.

“We are going to continue to see increasing fires every year. We are going to see more fires in our urban and suburban areas than ever before. People in Washington state need to be aware of this,” Franz said. “(It’s a) rallying cry.”

Most of the fire prevention work following the Gray and Oregon fires lies in “fuel reduction” or cutting trees down, trimming branches and clearing brush. In central and Eastern Washington alone, 800,000 acres of wildland have been treated in this way since 2018 to prevent fire spread.

Fire District 3 Chief Cody Rohrbach said the potential for another Gray fire still exists, however.

“All of Spokane County is at a heightened level of risk in contrast to Western Washington,” he said.

Spokane County has the largest wildland urban interface in the state, Rohrbach added, which means human development meets areas covered with more than 50% wildlands and has to be bordered by wildlands on at least one side.

The most concerning areas to Rohrbach, when looking at fire modeling, are the north and southwestern parts of the county. The southwestern part is also home to some of the driest timber in the state, which is a lethal combination for flames and unrestricted winds.

“When I look at Gray, I see ‘What can we do to increase awareness?’ – not just from what we do, but how we engage with the community,” he said, like showing people how to prepare their home in case of a wildfire.

“I look at it like safety features in a vehicle … Everyone wants a guarantee a home would survive. But really, we are trying to reduce the overall risk to give you the highest chance of survival,” Rohrbach said. “That’s the goal.”

The same sentiment sits with David LaChapelle, the assistant fire marshal for District 4. If more people in the area of Medical Lake and Elk had completed some fuel mitigation around their homes, it’s possible more homes would be left standing today.

“Fuel mitigation the key,” LaChapelle said. “Just trimming trees, proper spacing. Cut down lower branches going up 8-10 feet so the fire can’t get up in the trees. It gives us an opportunity to get in there and fight it.”

He also believes when fire risk is high, residents should be ready to go in case evacuations come swiftly. Leaving quickly with readied belongings may save lives and also the lives of deputies and firefighters that have to brave danger to knock on doors and tell people to evacuate.

A year on, Rohrbach said he took some lessons from the fire that devastated his district. He and his team have a heightened sense of purpose and awareness, along with a dire responsibility to communicate effectively with every agency working a fire.

That’s largely why the sheriff’s office installed their new system around two months ago that can track evacuations while deputies mark locations of homes with people inside on their maps. The sheriff’s office is able to see those updates in real time at the command post, Nowels said.

The system is available on the deputies laptops and phones even when out of service, as opposed to last year, where 60 to 70 officers were evacuating people and others at the command post were writing down what was being relayed to them over the radio.

But Nowels said this wasn’t a bad thing – the communication between different fire districts, the sheriff’s office and police “worked better than they ever had, and worked the way it was supposed to.”

“I was very proud of the interoperability,” Nowels said. “And I’m proud of the way people put their safety at risk to help others.”

What LaChappelle learned in the midst of chaos was just how strong a community can become after a devastating loss. At evacuation sites, so many items were donated that there wasn’t room to store it all.

“The giving attitude, helping each other out, it showed what we’re made of,” he said.

The Inland Northwest will burn again, officials have said. Eight structures were already lost in a fire south of Tyler in July. But maybe next time, preparation could mitigate the amount of devastation.

It’s like putting winter tires on a car before it snows, Rohrbach said.

“The time to prepare is before,” he said. “We have this as a reminder of the potential. Last year was a teachable moment.”