Published August 12, 2026 01:12PM
On August, 1, 2026, three wildfires closed in on the city of Spokane, burning over 10,000 acres, leveling hundreds of homes and businesses, and forcing over 60,000 people to evacuate. As of this writing, all evacuations have been lifted, but the experience of having to flee my home still haunts me. I was one of thousands evacuated. This is my story.
My family moved to Spokane, Washington, from Houston, Texas, nearly 13 years ago. Spokane offers the beauty of the Evergreen State with the convenience of being in close proximity to so many other top adventurous locations. We’re on the Washington-Idaho border near numerous ski mountains and hiking trails, and just over two hours to the rugged Rocky Mountains of Montana and Canada. The Spokane River runs through the center of city, population 231,000, and offers so much for hikers, kayakers, and anglers.
You can prepare for almost anything in the outdoors. But when a wildfire tore through my hometown, I learned there are some things no amount of preparation can make you ready for.
At 10:30 A.M. on Saturday, August 1, 2026, I stood at a gas pump looking out at the church across from our old home in the Indian Trail area of Spokane, Washington. This was the neighborhood where my youngest two children started school, where they made their first friends, where we grew close to our neighbors—one of whom we were on our way to see. We had just moved to another part of town.
A voice interrupted my thoughts. It was an elderly lady at the pump behind me. She was looking up at the sky over the station.
“The sky looks dark,” she said. “Feels like a fire’s coming.”
Eight hours later, those words would haunt me.
At 12:00 P.M.
“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you,” we sang out.
I wiped frosting from my kids’ faces as we loaded into the car after celebrating their friend’s fifth birthday. We had moved from Spokane to the smaller community of Nine Mile Falls a week prior. As we made our way back to our new home, I glanced over at the soccer fields where my oldest son first laced up his cleats.
That night, I would see those same fields again, in a photograph, surrounded by flames.
12:30 P.M.
We drove along the Spokane River to my mom and sister’s house, where my kids played while I did some unpacking. We live just 12 minutes apart now, a gift I no longer take for granted. In the aftermath of one of the largest wildfires in our city’s history, that 12-minute drive between our homes became a 90-minute journey each way.
2:30 P.M.
I had my hands in an unpacked box when my phone rang. “Apparently, there’s a fire near South Bank. We’re evacuating,” my neighbor said. Where is South Bank? I thought.
Then the power went out.
I looked at my daughter, who was struggling to find her rhythm in our new space. “I doubt this will be anything,” I told her. “Fire season. You know?”
I didn’t pack a bag. There was no official evacuation notice, after all. But the power was out, so we drove the 12 minutes to my family’s house anyway. I pulled up to find my dad packing the boat. Our annual family lake week was set to begin the next day, and there was an excitement in the air. I glanced at the sky. It seemed a little darker, maybe. But none of us felt threatened.
Inside, my sister quietly pulled me aside and whispered that a fire had just started two houses down from our cousin’s on Autumn Lane—about a seven-minute drive from our new home.
“They’ve evacuated. They think their house is already gone.”
I walked away so the kids wouldn’t see me cry, tears already falling. Still, I convinced myself it would be a short-lived tragedy, quickly contained.
4:00 P.M.
“I’m going to go get us food. I need something to do,” I told my brother-in-law.
I left alone for the grocery store a few minutes away. There was still no evacuation order in place. But when I pulled in, the lines of people waiting for gas spilled into the neighboring business’ parking lot, blocking my way through. They must know something I don’t, I thought.
From where I stood, there were no other signs of worry. Thirty minutes later, when I walked back through that parking lot, everything would look different.
Midway through my deli order, the phones started ringing off the hook. Employees began leaving. It took a while to get my food as the store filled with people, more crowded than I’d ever seen it.
“I just evacuated from Indian Trail,” a man behind me said. “Apparently, I trapped myself between two fires.”
He can’t mean the Autumn Lane fire, I thought. Wait! Indian Trail?! My old neighborhood. The place I’d just been that morning.
Then I walked outside and saw flames that weren’t there before, rising behind the store . I felt my chest tighten and my breathing change. We were in gridlock, trying to get out. I couldn’t get away fast enough to outrun my worry.
“Mom?” I called her phone again and again, but I couldn’t reach her. My cell wouldn’t work.
I finally reached the road back, pulling up just in time to see dark billows of smoke rolling toward the house where my family was gathered. By then, my mom had been trapped on the road for hours as the Old Trails Fire spread rapidly through town.
She walked through the door just as the evacuation alerts sounded on our phones.
6:00 P.M.
We packed our cars as quickly as we could, but the smoke was boxing us in. I took off in a panic when my brother-in-law looked behind him and started yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” as things flew out of my car.
Even as the fire moved closer, we still thought we’d be gone for one night—maybe.
It took us an abnormally long two hours from Nine Mile Falls to reach the mountain cabin where I’d spent so many days exploring as a kid.
There, we were isolated from what was happening. We stayed glued to our phones, searching for every update we could find. We heard reports about the Old Trails Fire spreading through town, but it wasn’t until my son received a text from a friend that we realized just how bad things had become at home.
“This can’t be real,” we said, staring at a photo of his high school surrounded by flames.
We later learned that firefighters had fought like hell to save it.
Because we’d already packed for lake week, our cars and campers were stocked with supplies and food, something we’d be grateful for in the days to come.
We would spend a week in those mountains.
August 11, 2026
As I type this, 11 days after evacuation, I’m home, and my house still stands. The National Guard just left after being stationed on my street while the fire here was being contained. I stay up each night giving my son breathing treatments. Even minimal exposure to the smoke wrecks havoc on his asthmatic body. I’ve heard a few folks say that it’s not usual wildfire smoke that we’re inhaling. The fire also burned tires, computer batteries and insulation, among other materials. We’re breathing in that smoke as well.
Getting information about what the fire burned is still difficult. I’ve been able to drive the main road I live off of and see some trees and homes that lay in ruins. This is the hardest part—not being able to confirm what we’ve heard. How much of my old neighborhood is gone? How much of my new neighborhood is gone? How many of us have lost our homes, our businesses, our favorite places in our city?
I heard that 30 families at my kids’ old elementary school lost their homes, that entire neighborhoods have been leveled, that our favorite trails are burned and historic sites gone.
My story is only one of tens of thousands from this day, and I was more fortunate than many.
The fire near me is mostly contained, and the conversation around it grows quieter online. But today, I passed by a stranger who I saw crying. I asked if she needed an embrace. We held each other for a moment without words. We know that this is only the beginning. This small community that is now my home will never be the same.
