Authorities ordered an entire community to evacuate Friday as a wildfire closed in on Medical Lake, Washington, leaving devastation in its wake.
It took mere hours for 35-mile-per-hour winds to cause the Gray Fire to spread across nearly 3,000 acres, NBC News reported Friday.
An image posted early Saturday shows the wildfire climbing through the trees near a body of water:
The Gray Fire in Medical Lake, Washington. Multiple structures lost, evacuations, and rescue missions. #wildfire #wafire #wawx
Numerous states had fires run through communities today.Tomorrow will be another one.
Dirty August.
Thanks to the subscriber that shared this 📷 pic.twitter.com/f17hw8pvzh
— The Hotshot Wake Up (@HotshotWake) August 19, 2023
The fire has scorched property inside the city limits, an area near Spokane where approximately 5,000 people call home.
#GrayFire approximately at 3am. Fire continued to burn with erratic fire behavior. pic.twitter.com/wC6SHetWqn
— Spokane Co.FD8 Firefighters (@spokaneco8_3711) August 19, 2023
Washington State Department of Natural Resources spokesman Joe Smillie told NBC, “We know that some homes have burned. We don’t know how many. This blew up really big, really fast. It’s been really hot the last week.”
One person reportedly died in the blaze near Medical Lake, 4 News Now said Saturday:
The fire hit, then crawled over Interstate 90, which prompted areas of the roadway to close down. Officials have also begun evacuations in the smaller community of Four Lakes.
Those “who might be trying to come into the area, please do not,” Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels told KREM viewers on Friday.
“There’s a lot of fire equipment; there’s a lot of law enforcement resources in the area trying to battle this fire and to evacuate people who may be struggling to get out on their own,” he added:
Per the NBC report, Nowels said the fire was “zero percent” contained and was spreading into neighborhoods and near a school campus.
Twenty Washington Air National Guard members helped evacuate patients and workers from a hospital on Friday.
Happening now: 20 @WANationalGuard members from the 141st ARW are at Eastern State Hospital to help evacuate patients and staff in area of the #GrayFire pic.twitter.com/vnM8es1LkK
— WA National Guard (@WANationalGuard) August 19, 2023
In a social media post on Saturday, St. John’s Lutheran Church Medical Lake said its building appeared to have survived the blaze.
“We haven’t been inside to see if there’s any smoke damage or anything else but we are grateful to God and continue to pray for those not receiving such good news this morning,” the church said:
UPDATE: It looks as though St John’s church building made it safely through the fire. We haven’t been inside to see if…
Posted by St. John's Lutheran Church Medical Lake on Saturday, August 19, 2023
According to Smillie, the cause of the fire remains unknown.
“Two other fires started in other parts of Washington state on Friday afternoon. The fires, in Washington’s Douglas and Whitman counties, were both about 5,000 acres as of about 5 p.m., Smillie said,” the NBC report stated.
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