The devastation that happened
in inside some of those
areas, I've never seen anything
like it my entire life
breaking. Right now,
Spokane County has declared a se
of emergency for major wildfires
burning across the region that
have destroyed homes and forced
thousands of people to evacuate.
Good evening, and thank you for joining
us for Cremton News at 5:00 ton.
I'm Mark Hanrahan. And
I'm Whitney Ward. The entire cif
Medical Lake is still under Lev.
Go Now evacuations.
And according to the Departmentf
Natural Resources, the Gray fire
has killed at least one person.
It's also burned roughly 10,000 acres
and destroyed at least 185 structures,
many of them primary homes.
And that fire isn't the only on.
We are also tracking two more major wildfires
burning in Eastern Washington right now.
The Oregon Rd. Fire near Elk has
grown to more than 8000 acres in size,
has destroyed more than two dozen structures
and is threatening many more ans
forcing thousands of people to evacuate.
And down in Whitman County, crews are
getting a handle on the Winona ,
but Level 1 evacuations remain in place. We
do have complete CREM 2 team coverage
tonight on all of these fires.
Nathan Young and Amanda Rowley have the
latest on the Gray Fire in Medical Lake,
and Cody Proctor and Janelle Finch traveled
to Elk today to bring us the most UpToDate
information on the Oregon Rd. F.
We'll start, though with Nathan
Young on the ground in Medical .
And Nathan, you got a tour of we
the fire swept through last nig.
What can you tell us?
Well, Mark, Mitt, Whitney,
we're in a neighborhood on the
South side of Medical Lake,
and the devastation is extensiv.
Many homes have been reduced to rubble,
nothing more than foundations,
twisted metal and some burned c.
But other homes,
like this one just five feet aw,
somehow still standing.
And the fire was devastating
and the damage was widespread.
The fire started early yesterday
afternoon and extreme weather conditions
drove the flames towards Medical Lake,
prompting Level 3 evacuations.
Firefighters will continue to work hard.
The Gray Fire is now at nine,
500 acres and 0% contained.
Right now, we've been heavily engaged
in evacuations, structure proten
and trying to secure the line.
District 3 Fire Chief Cody Rohrh
says the fire has burned 185 structures.
It's not clear yet on how many
of those structures are homes.
Officials say that hundreds
of homes are still threatened.
We certainly want to get folks k
into their houses as soon as possible
and we want to also provide them
with the the best possible outc.
Firefighters have been working
non-stop since yesterday,
and earlier today Spokane County
declared a state of emergency.
We've brought in a lot of additl
resources from across the stateo
help relieve our firefighters tt
some of them are nearing 24 hours and
even though you might not see fs
anymore and want to go back hom,
officials are asking people to stay away.
But we recommend if they're in the Level
3 evacuation zones to not enter those zones.
They're still quite hazardous.
Deputies confirming the worst.
Last night,
one person was killed somewhere
in the evacuation zone.
At this point,
no other injuries have been
reported and crews are hoping
to keep it that way,
so authorities have not released identity
of the person who died in the f.
We also had a chance to speak wh
people that live in this neighborhood.
One woman told me that her neigr
was out running errands yesterday and
when she came home, she came bao
find her home burnt to the grou.
She also sadly lost two dogs
live in Medical Lake.
Nathan Han KREM 2 News.
Nathan, thank you.
And although many neighborhoods
are destroyed tonight,
Medical Lake Mayor Terry
Cooper says that some of the
critical city infrastructure
is actually still holding up.
All of the schools are standing.
All of the businesses are stand.
City Hall is standing.
The library is standing.
The post office is standing.
None. All of the businesses,
the grocery store,
every business is standing
well. The entire town of Medical Lake,
where nearly 5000 people live,
was forced to evacuate yesterday
and at this point it is not cler
when they'll be allowed to retu.
Amanda Rowley is continuing ourm
coverage here on the Gray fire.
She is joining us live from
the evacuation center,
which has been set up at Spokane
Falls Community College.
And Amanda, what are you
hearing out there tonight?
Yeah, Mark and Whitney,
with the last 24 hours obviously have been
a whirlwind for the residents who have
had to evacuate because of the Gray fire.
They were first sent to Cheney High School,
where the evacuation center was first set up.
Then a few hours later,
they were relocated here to
Spokane Falls Community College.
Today they are hanging on to any
update that comes in about this fire.
About 100 Gray fire evacuees
took shelter at Spokane Falls
Community College overnight.
I think it's still numb.
Sandy Hastings woke up here with
several questions on her mind.
I'll think of things like my mos
quilt that I I don't know why I
left it there and didn't grab i.
You start thinking of things
like that and you think,
oh gosh, why didn't I grab that?
You know, why didn't I do this?
She and her husband arrived at the shelter
with this haunting image of her home.
Sandy didn't know if her RV surd
the fire, but then her neighbort
these photos confirming the wor.
He called me and he said it's just flattened.
Sandy, all of that is gone.
I know that I should be thankfu,
which I am, that my husband and I are safe.
It's just that it's, you know,
shocking to the system.
Pretty sad to go through Medical
Lake and see all the houses.
Rich and Mary Millender evacuated late
last night from their home of 30 years,
but it got to the point where the helicopter
is directly over your house with
buckets of water. It's time to leave.
They took off with their trailer and dog Max.
Then they set up here at the
Walmart in Airy Heights,
my little travel trailer in 196.
What's next for these displaced
families isn't clear yet.
We have a lot to be thankful fo,
but despite the uncertainty,
Medical Lake Mayor Terry Cooper
has hope in moving forward.
First of all, I want to say to y
Medical Lake residents that I love you.
My heart is with you.
See now you touch the nerve
and that it's going to be okay.
Where it's going to be okay.
Now at this time, the Red Cross is saying
the best way that you can help e
evacuees is by donating money o.
That's because at this point,
they're not sure yet what
specific needs the community ha,
which means donating monetary
donations is the most effective
way to really help them purchase
those resources that they do fi.
They're going to need to bring
these evacuees.
I'm Amanda Rowley, CREM 2 News.,
Amanda. Thank you very much.
And as the Gray fire continues to burn,
I-90 has been shut down in both directions
for more than 24 hours at this point.
Those closures stretch from Sprague at
milepost 245 near the town of Sprague
all the way to the US to interchange.
It's about 20 miles or more,
and there are multiple detours for Hwy.
travelers. So take a look at your screen.
It can be kind of complicated.
All travelers right now who are headed
eastbound through Spokane must t
off at the Sprague exit and then
use State Route 23 to 231 to U .
You can also use State Route 23 to US195
or State Route 23 to 28 and then U S2.
Meanwhile, all westbound travels
must get off at US2 and divert through
Davenport via State Route 23 to
28 before reconnecting at Sprag.
All semi trucks must use State Route 28
and 23 as they continue around the fires.
We spoke with Ryan Overton fromh
dot East and he said his biggest concern
as portions of State Route 94 ae
closed due to firefighting equipment.
Really the big impact right now is the fire
itself being so close to State Route 904
because that's the detour
point around I-90 at this
point into Cheney.
We can't have traffic
on that roadway with firefightig
equipment making its way that direction.
And as those Rd.
closures continue to change,
Wash dot E is encouraging people
to look at their Twitter page
for the very latest information
because it is changing.
We also have those updates
always on our website.
You can look right now.
Just go to creme.com.
All right, Let's talk weather right now
with chief meteorologist Jeremy the Gu,
who is tracking conditions at ts
hour and taking a look at really
our hazardous air quality. Yeah,
Jeremy, the wind obviously was g
factor yesterday of the smoke. ,
when can we expect that might move out?
I don't think the smoke is going to move
out until Sunday night or Monday morning.
You can take a look outside.
And we always talk about visibiy
and how it equates to air quali.
Right now, we sit in the hazards
category that is air quality,
so dangerous to your health,
it's considered hazardous
to be outside breathing it.
The wind has died down,
but that is part of the reason
we do have some of this smoke.
The smoke is pouring in from
Canada and the nearby wildfires,
and with wind this calm,
a lot of it settles down near the ground.
Widespread sustained winds,
less than 10 mph locally around
some of those fires here,
our wind has subsided greatly
from where it was yesterday.
But still picking up a bit of id
still seeing some of that smokep
up on radar here is that smoke moving
South of Medical Lake on the ra.
Rest of this kind of the rest of that
smoke around us, believe it or ,
feeding back into the radar sca.
A little bit of the smoke up
near the Oregon Rd. fire as wel.
You can see that right there.
And notice the wind much lighte.
These are sustained winds of
less than 10 mph.
That's your wind speed averaged
out over a couple of minutes.
But what this wind is doing
is pulling in the smoke.
Our air quality alerts remain in
place through Monday morning.
This will not change until so
Monday when we get a shift in
our overall wind direction.
There's your Gray fire near Medical Lake.
Watch what happens as we put it in motion.
So from Friday to Friday night
and then into Saturday,
we see all of that smoke
pour in across the region.
That smoke equates to our
drop in air quality.
We sit in the hazardous realm.
448 is where we currently are tt
hazardous sticks around today ad
tomorrow across much of the Inld
Northwest with no real relief insight
until we get into Monday and gea
shift in our overall weather pattern.
But by Monday morning we should
start to see some major improves
in that air quality.
In fact,
I think we see improvements in
air quality and the chance of
rain returned to the forecast.
I will have a closer look at the
rain and let you know where it's
coming from and why it looks lie
it does clean out our air coming
up in your full forecast.
All right, sounds good.
Jeremy.
I'll talk to you later in the broadcast.
Well, because of our hazardous
air quality, the city of Spokane
has opened a safe air center whe
residents can escape that dangerous air.
Yeah, all Spokane library locations except
for the Hilliard branch are now open for
use as well as the Trent Resource Center.
That Trent shelter will be open4
hours a day while the air quality index
remains hazardous as it is right now.
The libraries will open from noo
4:00 tomorrow and then from 9:0M
to 7:00 PM Monday through Thurs.
Also, the Spokane Transit Authoy
Plaza will be open until 11:30 tonight,
then from 6:00 AM to 9:30 PM tomorrow.
STA is also offering free
rides to any of these centers.