(This content was created with the help of AI.) In Spokane, neighborhoods long treated as relatively immune to wildfire just learned otherwise. Three fast-moving blazes on the city’s edge have scorched more than 10,000 acres, damaged or destroyed at least 931 structures, and forced roughly 65,000 people to evacuate over the past week—including residents who chose those areas precisely because they were considered a safer bet, reports the Washington Post.
Draft state hazard maps released July 1 had labeled large swaths of the burned zones as “low” or “very low” wildfire risk, designations meant to signal a once-in-centuries chance of burning.
Instead, homes backing onto forested parkland went up in hours. One of the fires, Old Trails—which leveled resident Michelle Angstrom’s house and killed her two dogs—has grown past 3,500 acres; a 37-year-old man has been charged with arson in that blaze, while the other two fires’ causes remain under investigation…