The Inland Northwest could burn again: Potential for more wildfires highlights need for safety, preventative measures

Fire officials are preparing for a hot, dry summer that could leave the region in danger of wildfires.

“That’s if I had to predict what was going to happen,” Fire District 3 Chief of Fire Prevention Dustin Flock said. “We don’t really know where it’s going to be or what it’s going to do.”

After weeks of summer without excessive stretches of scorching weather or smoke-filled skies, conditions took a devastating turn in mid-August when two human-caused wildfires burned hundreds of homes in Medical Lake and near Elk. It’s unlikely wildfires will burn in those areas again, Flock said. But other areas are a big risk.

The Aspen Meadows area between Cheney and Spangle comes to his mind when he thinks of places at a high risk for fire, as well as Mullen Hill off Highway 195.

“Those trees are 10-15 feet tall right now, and dense. Any larger trees in that area acts as fuel,” Flock said. “If those trees burn, it will have a lot of intensity with it. … If we get significant wind, then topography will play a role.”

April also wasn’t a good month for precipitation. Trends are leaning toward drier summers and the local snowpack is below average, National Weather Service meteorologist Greg Koch said.

“If we don’t experience average or above-average precipitation in May and June,” Koch said, “wildfire season could begin earlier than normal.”

Weather plays a factor in wildfires just as much as wind – hot embers from the fires last year were carried in the breeze to the other side of Silver Lake during the Gray fire. Embers can land on a home or in a tree and smolder for days, Fire Marshall Bill Clifford demonstrated Thursday. Anything from paper to pine needles to entire branches from trees can fly through the air, potentially causing another catastrophic fire.

Closely nestled trees also burn much faster on steep terrain rather than a flat surface, because fire doesn’t need wind to spread upward into other trees, according to fire investigator Rick Freier. A fire that starts at the bottom of a mountain can reach the top faster than people think.

That’s partly why residents surrounding Silver Lake had almost no time to evacuate when the fires roared into the town of Medical Lake last year.

District 10 Deputy Fire Chief Andres Steevens lost his home on the edge of Silver Lake last year. On Thursday, he watched construction crews build the foundation for his new home where his old home once stood.

Steevens was out of town at the time. He got a call from his team asking “where to go” – and he realized his house was caught in the middle of his career. He changed his plane ticket and came straight back to a devastating scene. Nothing was left.

“The fire gained a lot of momentum, gained a lot of heat, a lot of its own weather,” Steevens said.

And by the time he returned, there wasn’t a way to stop it.

“It was a wall of flames,” Steevens said.

Steevens thought he did everything to keep fire from hitting his house. He limbed up the trees on his property, installed metal siding, switched from mulch to rock to line the property and poured concrete around the backyard.

“None of the measures were enough,” he said. “When I think of what could have saved my home, it would have been being much more proactive as a community. … We could have thinned out the trees more. We could have taken out the trees behind us. We could’ve gotten together as a community and cleaned our area to make it more fire resistant.”

The one home standing on the edge of Silver Lake, just off South Granite Road, is built of brick. It’s also lined with rocks, there are few trees in the yard and the brush is well-maintained. It’s likely what saved the house while the homes around it burned to the ground.

South Granite Road is also the way into the homes on the edge of Silver Lake – and the way out.

That day in August, the smoke was so thick, no one could see feet in front of them as they attempted to escape. One mistake at the wheel, one wrong turn, and there’s little chance of survival, Steevens said.

“There were people we called, that by the time they got in their truck and got whatever documents they could gather, the road was already on fire,” Steevens said. “They had to drive through the fire. People need to know their evacuation routes.”

People also need to have a plan with their families to get out of the house in case a fire starts inside the home or a wildfire swiftly approaches, Flock said Thursday.

“That goes from having bags packed to setting aside important documentation,” he said. “Know what the road systems are, (know) more than one way to get out of the area. And then just knowing what the evacuation levels are – Level 1, get ready; Level 2, get set. Level 3 is go. The incident commander will take a map and we will determine an area that’s closest to the fire, and we start with three there.”

Sometimes residents won’t leave their homes, though. It’s their choice, Flock said. If that’s the case, firefighters will get a phone number for their next of kin before they escape for their own safety.

“If you see me leaving in a hurry, you might want to follow,” he said. “The last thing we want to see is for somebody to get injured and killed. Firefighters will risk a lot to save a lot, but sometimes we have to make that hard decision to to leave.”