Here’s the unpopular opinion:
I was born and raised in Spokane, Washington. If that doesn’t give me at least a little credibility when talking about fires around here, I don’t know what to tell you.
About ten years ago, my dad’s house nearly burned on the opposite side of town. It was the lone big house sitting up on a forested hill. But my dad had deliberately cleared the trees for at least 30 feet around the house and left a large open space between the garage and the surrounding forest. That defensible space may be the reason the house survived.
Earlier this year, roughly two miles east of his place, a fire hit a wealthy residential community built on another wooded hillside. The houses were packed close together and surrounded by trees. Twelve homes were reportedly lost, and one person died.
Spokane has serious fire problems almost every year.
Last year, while I was living in my car, I spent part of the summer at Bowl and Pitcher. That campground sits right in the area where the Old Trail Fire eventually jumped across the river. The campground itself—the showers, bridge and occupied areas—was well maintained. But go 200 yards outside it, and much of the surrounding land was a tinderbox.
Without intensive land management over the past several years, this was a disaster waiting to happen.
Once it becomes reasonable and safe to investigate, I’ll go look for myself. But I am not going to drive up there and interfere with active firefighting operations. I know the area. I have my own car. I could go. But right now, that would be more selfish than productive, and I have no interest in becoming a nuisance.
The uncomfortable truth is that many of Washington’s forests have been allowed to become dangerously overgrown and unmanageable. Decades of forest policy—especially since the spotted-owl battles—have contributed to forests becoming dense, dry tinderboxes.
People can invent conspiracy theories about why environmentalists who claim to love nature allowed this to happen. They can argue that it was all part of some larger plan. But no conspiracy is required to explain this fire.
The conditions were already there.
It began in a less residential area, crossed the river and reached a heavily populated neighborhood where houses were packed among trees and surrounded by dry forest.
The worst-case scenario happened.
That is tragic, but it is not mysterious.