Good afternoon and thank you for
joining us for KREM 2 News 1st at 4:00.
I'm Mark Hanrahan.
Whitney is off tonight.
Let's get right to our big breag
news tonight out of Medical Lake
where within the last several hs
Level 3 go Now evacuations haven
issued for a second alarm wildf.
The entire city of Medical Lakes
being ordered to evacuate right.
We know the fire is just South f
Medical Lake and north of I-90.
We have sent various crews
to that area today.
KREM Two's Kyle Simchuk starts
our live team coverage.
And Kyle,
what can you tell us at this ho?
Well, Mark, I know a lot of
people watching right now want o
know exactly where this fire is,
where it is burning,
but it is just too difficult,
too dangerous for us to actually
get closer to things right now.
And we certainly don't want to t
in the way of first responders.
But I can tell you that this
fire is really burning off
the Eastern Shore of the lake.
And this fire has grown tremendy
over the last few hours.
We've started to see plumes of k
smoke coming up in the neighbord
again on that Eastern Shore of
the lakes of the opposite side
from where Eastern State Hospit.
And that fire is continuing to e
through town Winds right now kid
of pushing it to the northeast.
Right now we're standing at 4th and Howard,
so near the North End of the la.
And this is where helicopters he
really have an aggressive attac.
They're scooping water just in the last,
I'd say 10 minutes or so.
We've started to see some more aircraft,
some of those air tankers comin,
so they'll be dropping fire
retardant hopefully very soon.
But there's only so much that these crews
can do and this fire is continuing to grow.
We're going to be on scene here throughout
the night trying to track the latest details,
talking to DNR,
talking to 1st responders.
But again,
if you are in Medical Lake right now,
you are asked to leave immediat,
Mark.
Alright,
Kyle, thank you very much.
At last check, we understand tht
fires between 500 and 700 acres.
We want to turn now to Creme
Two's Amanda Rowley who is livet
the Red Cross evacuation center
set up at Cheney High School.
Amanda, what have you been seeig
out there as people start to pour in?
Well, Mark, just as we came onte
air here, I saw this older coupe
walking in with their tiny litte
dog and massive jugs of water.
They say we made it out, we made it out.
I can only assume they didn't
say where they came from,
but we only assumed the evacuated area.
So as you mentioned,
I'm here at the Cheney High Sch.
This is the evacuation center.
The parking lot isn't full,
but on my way in here from I-90
getting off onto the Cheney exi,
I saw a huge line of RV's
trailers heading this direction.
This is the safe space for ever.
You can see behind me.
American Red Cross is here.
There are some folks starting to
trickle in and we are watching several
more people kind of just streaming in.
I just got onto the scene here.
Again, there's water.
People are handing out water,
get indoors, getting cooled off.
Just kind of a hurry up and
wait at this point.
But once we learn more here,
I'll update you guys for now,
reporting in Cheney.
Amanda Rolly Creme 2 News.
All right,
Amanda, thank you very much.
We want to turn out a chief meteorologist.
Jeremy the goo. Jeremy, it has n
hot and dry for several days no.
And we saw outside the Amanda's live shot.
In Kyle's live shot, it is wind.
That is certainly not helping the situation.
No, we knew this wind was coming for a
couple of days and unfortunately we're
still in this wind for another few hours.
You can see it kind of strong of
the West. There's a Gray fire rt
there burning near Medical Lake.
Few things to point out here.
One, see the green showing up right there.
That is enough smoke in the atmosphere that
the radar is actually picking that smoke up.
The second thing, the winds,
the wind on the left at 31 mph
is from Fairchild Air Force Bas.
The 25 mph comes from the airpo,
that's Geiger or Spokane International
Airport and that wind is expectd
to stay strong.
What you're looking at are windt
values when it comes to the wind or has.
The National Weather Service calculates
those sustained wind values woud
be averaging out multiple wind
gusts over a twominute period.
Those sustained winds are
still up over 20 mph.
They're predominantly out of the West,
especially if you go up in elevation.
What you're looking at right th,
the arrows,
the West southwesterly directio,
that's wind down near the groun.
What you're looking at above that is the
wind up at about a kilometer off the ground.
That wind up a little bit highes
what is blowing some of that sme
near us here on Spokane South H.
Overall,
what we are seeing is pretty strong wind
across much of the Inland North.
A great way to judge what wind s
coming toward you is to look at
the direction it's coming from.
Look out at the Foothill of the Cascades.
There's still strong wind out t.
Our winds out there still where
they are here.
So to me that says wind isn't gg
anywhere anytime soon until 6:0.
I think we're in those strong
wind gusts of 25 to 35 mph,
mostly out of the West or West
southwest here in Eastern Washington.
As we move from 6:00 to 7:00 PM,
we'll watch the wind gusts go
from about 25 mph to 20 mph.
A20 mph wind gust is much much calmer
than a 35 mile per hour wind gu.
I know they seem very close,
but when it comes to battling wildfires and
progression of wildfires in day wind event,
that 30 mile per hour range
and higher moves smoke and fire
astronomically faster than a 20e
per hour wind gust does overnig.
We are going to watch it calm
down 7:00 to 9:00 PM I think is
our big window for calming.
We go from about 20 to 15 mph,
15 about where you see the brans
on your tree move, but that's i.
Look over in the Cascades.
A little bit stronger over ther,
but most of that wind is blowing
to the southwest.
As wind calms tonight,
it will shift to more northerly.
That should get crews a bit of
help and get that fire maybe
moving a little bit away from te
downtown area of Medical Lake.
Overnight the wind calms down aa
much calmer weather pattern setn
as we get into the day on Satur.
Not much, even in the way of wind gusts.
Sustained wind will be much cal.
Wind gusts will be much calmer.
We hang on to a red flag warning through
9:00 PM tonight across the entire northwest.
That means these critical fire
conditions are sticking around l
after the sun goes down tonight. Mark.
All right, Jeremy, sounds like
we'll be in that wind for a whi.
Taking a live look from
downtown Spokane right now,
you can see the huge plume of se
coming up from the fire again,
this one burning in Medical
Lake southwest of Spokane.
Jeremy touched on the wind direction,
pushing some of that wind
towards us here in Spokane.
I just checked in with Spokane's
Clean Air Agency and right now r
AQI or air quality sits at 84.
That is in the moderate categor.
These readings are updated
at the bottom of every hour.
So at around 4:35 will be our
next update on that reading.
And I would not be surprised if
our air quality takes a dip bece
that's smoke blowing into our a.
We will continue to follow this
story right here on the air as
well as on our website, creme.c.
As soon as we get any new information,
we'll bring that to you right here on
the air or on our website, creme.com.
In the meantime,
we will move on to another big story.
Today,
a building fire in Chiwela burnd
down a wellknown hardware store
in the small community.
No injuries were reported,
but firefighters say the buildig
is a complete loss.
Crem Two's Nathan Hyun went to Chiwela
to see the damage that fire left behind.
One of the oldest buildings in
Turila is now gone due to a
devastating fire last night.
I'm going to step out of the way so you
can just see what's left of this building.
The windows are blown out,
there's no more roof,
and you can see all the bricks on the ground.
I'm told that this building initially
was built as a hotel in the eary
1900s until it turned into a hardware
store and I had the chance to sk
with some residents of Turila ad
what this building means to thed
why it's a staple in their community.
It was our our hardware store.
I mean everybody was in there at least
once or twice a day for this or that.
It's just been a community staple and
and a huge part of our our Chue,
our town, our beautiful town.
The initial call for the fire ce
in at about 11:30 last night and
firefighters were fighting the .
Until this morning.
We still don't know the
cause of the fire in Chuila.
Nathan Cremton News
Well, today is the next chapter
in the Moscow murders trial.
Creme 2 has been in a late couny
courtroom all day long listenino
the prosecution and defense following
the murders of four University f
Idaho students late last year.
Here's where things stand
as of this afternoon.
For the first part of the day in court,
the defense spent most of the
time calling witnesses who
testified about genetic genealoy
and its use in criminal cases.
Stephen Mercer is a Washington,
DC based criminal defense attor.
He has experienced litigating cs
about DNA and constitutional ris
and says criminal defense attors
need to have all the information
related to genetic testing,
not just what pertains to their clients.
Was it past the news?
Was there searching of data bans
that violated the terms and
conditions of those data banks?
It was their surreptitious DNA collection.
These are very fact specific inquiries
that the attorney must know in
formulating A suppression chall,
Mercer says. Attorneys need to be able
to investigate how those tests e
done and if it was done correct,
which may allow for possible
suppression arguments.
The state has arguments of its .
Prosecutors are seeking A
protective order over the genetc
genealogy testing in this case.
Well, Creme 2 News continues toe
in that Layton County courtroomd
we will bring you the very latet
updates coming up in 2 hours on Creme
2 News at 5:00 and 6:00 tonight.