The roughly 240 National Guard members currently based in Spokane are tasked with assisting local law enforcement, which is worn thin by the ongoing fires in the region, the head of the department told The Spokesman-Review in an interview Sunday.
Maj. Gen. Gent Welsh, adjutant general of the Washington National Guard and a former longtime resident of Spokane, said Sunday that Guard members are tasked with assisting first responders so they can refocus on other, higher-priority efforts.
“The industrial scale that’s out there, there’s such a large area. You’ve got three disparate fires,” Welsh said. “And if you think about it from a law enforcement security type of perspective, that’s a lot of area to lock down.”…