How Spokane’s Wildfires Turned a Small Footprint Into Massive Loss—and Where It Could Happen Next

Kami Fehlig had about half an hour to decide what her family could carry out of their Spokane, WA, home.She and her husband loaded their two daughters and dog into their cars, along with a wedding album, baby books, and pet supplies. Then the power went out, and the warning became urgent: “Go now, go now,” Fehlig recalled to Reuters.By Wednesday, officials estimated that the three fires burning around Spokane had forced 67,000 people to evacuate and destroyed about 850 buildings—Fehlig’s home included.“This particular neighborhood has been pretty wiped out,” she said.By the measure most often used to describe a wildfire, however, the Spokane fires barely register.More than 2.3 million acres had burned across the Pacific Northwest as of Thursday, amounting to the worst fire season the region has seen in 30 years. The three Spokane-area fires accounted for roughly 10,500 acres—less than 1% of that total.The contrast exposes a limitation in how wildfire destruction is often understood and communicated: Acreage may quantify how much land burned, but it too often misses how much a community lost.And that measure is becoming more important as wildfire risk spreads well beyond the places ...