Spokane Shows What the New Era of Wildfires Looks Like
The Pacific Northwest is experiencing a record-breaking wildfire season characterized by extreme drought and heat. Officials are struggling to manage the scale of destruction and the displacement of thousands of residents, including vulnerable senior populations.
Why it matters
The increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires highlight the tangible impacts of climate change on infrastructure and public safety.
Nurses and volunteers were moving between the rows of cots around Robertson, making sure that the hundreds of evacuees—from the mothers with their babies to the elderly with their caretakers—had blankets and enough to eat. Just outside, the air was noxious with smoke “thick enough to burn your eyes,” she said.
Robertson, a communications director for the Red Cross, is from Washington and has been with the organization for 10 years. She has seen communities devastated by wildfires before. But never like this.
“The scale of homes destroyed and lives changed forever—this is a new level,” she said. “We are bracing ourselves for seasons like this getting worse and worse, and starting earlier and going later.”
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