Why the Spokane wildfires became so catastrophic

Three large wildfires raced through neighborhoods in and around Spokane, Washington, the weekend of Aug. 1, 2026, . Tens of thousands of people, including patients at the Veterans Affairs medical center, were as crews from across Washington and Idaho battled .

Fortunately, residents and fire crews . One day before the fires broke out, the National Weather Service declared a rare “ for the Spokane region, the first of its kind in Washington state.

Historically, fire officials have issued red flag warnings to indicate critical fire weather conditions, including low humidity and strong winds in conjunction with dry vegetation that could support the rapid spread of fires. A “particularly dangerous situation” alert elevates that warning, indicating a high risk of damage from an extremely rare and hazardous event.

Forecasters had reason to be worried. In Spokane, dry, windy conditions converged in what’s known as the wildland-urban interface – an area where neighborhoods have been built into the forests, shrublands and grasslands. That set the stage for the latest wildland-urban disaster in the U.S.

What causes extreme fire behavior?

The Spokane fires, collectively known as the Spokane Complex Fire, resulted from a rare convergence of compounding factors.

, driven in large part by a , played a large role.

Snowpack acts as a natural reservoir, storing winter precipitation and gradually releasing meltwater into early summer. With far below normal snowfall and exceptionally warm winter temperatures, forests dried weeks earlier than normal, leaving trees facing prolonged water stress and making them increasingly vulnerable to fires.

Despite generally dry conditions, spring rain, interspersed with periods of above-average temperatures, across the Northwest.

Exposed to scorching summer temperatures, this vegetation dried quickly and became highly flammable, leaving a continuous fuel bed where wildfires could ignite and rapidly spread.

When a dry cold front crossed the Inland Northwest on Aug. 1, it brought prolonged, sustained strong winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour, with gusts up to 45 mph, along with low humidity, which fueled the explosive growth of the Spokane fires.

More than across the U.S. in 2026 as of Aug. 3, well above the 10-year average for that point in the year. That included blazes raging in difficult terrain along the Utah–Colorado border that in June, and escalating fire activity that followed across the Northwest as summer progressed.

What’s different about the Spokane fires?

The extreme fire behavior of the Spokane Complex Fire was not unique among the Northwest’s in early August 2026. The , for example, along the Oregon–Idaho border, burned more than 300,000 acres.

In the Spokane area, however, the were all burning largely within wildland-urban interface landscapes, where forests, shrublands and grasslands are interspersed with residential and commercial buildings.

That environment created dangerous pathways for fire to spread into developed areas, ignite vulnerable structures and then propagate from one structure to the next. By Aug. 3, the Spokane fires had burned , or about 12.5 square miles (32 square kilometers), and were still burning.

Destructive Spokane fires reflect a broader trend

In our research as and , we have found that more U.S. homes are being exposed to wildfire risk.

Our recent study indicates that , meaning the homes were within wildfire boundaries, from 2001 to 2020 across the contiguous U.S.

Two-thirds of those homes were in the western U.S., where the number of homes exposed to large wildfires increased sixfold over that period. We found that home survivability – the fraction of homes that were within the boundaries of a large wildfire but not damaged – declined by 12% over the same period.

This trend is largely driven by three factors:

• The – about 15 million were added from 1990 to 2020 across the U.S., a nearly 50% increase.
• Worsening wildfire behavior due to , and changing precipitation patterns.
• A backbone of fuel accumulation in forests due to a in fire-adapted Western landscapes that depended on periodic low severity burns to clear out dead fuel and litter.

How everyone can reduce fire risk

Wildfires are a natural part of the North American landscape, particularly in the West. Historically, low-intensity fires before it could build up to fuel larger blazes.

Over the past century, however, with more people living in the wildland-urban interface, fires have been quickly suppressed, allowing vegetation to build up, which in conjunction with a warming climate enhanced the risk of larger fires.

There are, however, steps that communities and homeowners can take to reduce the risk of wildfires becoming disasters.

At the landscape scale, locally tailored and to remove dry and overgrown vegetation can reduce the likelihood that fires will develop into fast-moving, high-severity events that threaten communities and ecosystems.

At the community scale, everyone from residents to local governments, community organizations and homeowner associations can collaboratively develop and implement . These plans map vulnerable neighborhoods and critical infrastructure to find ways to reduce their risks in a fire. They also prioritize areas for fuel treatments, such as prescribed burns, and evacuation corridors to protect communities, strengthen emergency alert systems and improve access for firefighting.

At the individual-home scale, and around homes can reduce the probability of a fire reaching the home. Home hardening means fixing vulnerable components such as roofs, windows and openings through which wind-blown embers might enter. The area within 5 feet of a home, , should be kept free of combustible materials. Beyond this zone, vegetation should be pruned, thinned and adequately spaced to avoid flames easily spreading.

These steps won’t ensure safety from wildfires, but they can help reduce the damage and risk to human lives.