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Three major wildfires burning near Spokane, Washington, caused authorities to declare a state of emergency and forced thousands of people to evacuate.
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The Old Trails, Fairview and Autumn Lane fires have scorched over 7,700 acres with 0% containment as of 2:45 p.m. ET on Aug. 2, Benjamin Cossel – public information officer for the California Interagency Incident Management Team 7 – confirmed to USA TODAY.
Cossel said that more than 600 structures have been destroyed by the fires, a number that he said is likely to rise. He added that Autumn Lane was the “fire of concern” for Aug. 2.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a statewide emergency and burn ban Aug. 1. Multiple areas of Spokane are under a Level 3 evacuation order, the highest level in the state. About 5,000 homes have been evacuated, according to the Associated Press.
“We urge residents of Spokane to heed evacuation orders and to stay alert to changing conditions and evacuations as they are rapidly changing,” Courtney James, spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, told CBS News.
No deaths related to the fires have been reported as of Aug. 2.
The fires near Spokane are one of five “major complex fires” in the state, Washington State Forester George Geissler said in an Aug. 1 news conference. The biggest, the Kaiser Canyon Fire in the northeastern part of the state, is approximately 134,000 acres.
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Northwest sees multiple fires
Wildfires this summer have been a problem in other parts of the Pacific Northwest. Nearly 34,000 lightning strikes last month led to a series of fires and evacuation orders in the southern part of British Columbia.
For the summer so far, about 450,000 acres have burned in Washington state, Dave Upthegrove, the state’s commissioner of public lands, said at the Aug. 1 news conference. “This is not normal,” he said.
About 4,000 people were fighting more than a dozen fires throughout the state, Upthegrove said.
This story has been updated with new information
Contributing: Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Washington fires force thousands of evacuations. See map
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Reporting by James Powel, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect
This story was originally published August 2, 2026 at 11:35 AM.