This Time It Was Different

After years of smoke as a distant inconvenience, the Spokane fires finally reached our neighborhood — and our church

Before last Saturday, it was like most Augusts lately — the time, as opposed to when I was growing up, when Spokane is regularly enveloped in smoke. Not heavy smoke like in the past; sometimes we’ve had an AQI of up to 500. This time it was around 60, and I was still able to go outside for my daily walks. Little did any of us anticipate what we were going to face last Saturday.

For Robi and me, it began as we walked out our door, looked to the southwest, and spotted what appeared to be a nuclear explosion. There was a huge plume of smoke that made both of us gasp. A plume that had an intensity and anger to it that we had not seen before.

We knew something was up. We checked the local news and learned there was a fire that had started on Old Trails Rd near Airway Heights. It moved northeast, jumping the Spokane River near the enormous Merkel soccer complex, about an eight-minute drive from our house. The winds were howling, with up to 45 miles-an-hour gusts, so there was immediate concern.

For context, the building our church meets in is probably about a four-minute drive from Merkel Field. It didn’t take long until we started getting notices that our area was at Level 3 / Evacuation Order, which means “immediate danger; leave the area right now.”

To tell you the truth, I’d never even thought about what a “go bag” was, let alone had one ready. We do now. As a matter of fact, it’s still in our car.

I don’t know for certain, but I’d guesstimate that about half of our church ended up being evacuated. No one in our church actually lost their home, at least up to this point — though several of my friends have. Fires broke out in several other places, and it became an emergency that found its way into the news all over the world.

One particular dear friend, who has allowed me to be her pastor for decades, lived in a housing development just down the hill from Merkel Field. I’d say her house is no more than a quarter mile away. I wanted to call her immediately to find out if they were okay. She’d been called into work; she’s a nurse. Her husband and kids had evacuated. They were safe. Their house, however, was still right in the fire’s path. There was a grace, a kind of miracle, in what happened next: one of their neighbors, refusing to comply with the evacuation directive, stayed behind, and with a power washer, hosed down the hillside the fire was coming directly toward. It stripped away enough fuel to create a swath of protection between the fire and their house. Their house was saved by a bold and courageous neighbor.

Another person in our church just told me about a friend who was vacationing in Oslo, Norway, and was watching CNN. As the video ran, it immediately flashed to an image of their actual house being incinerated. Think about what that must have felt like watching from the other side of the world their residence burned to the ground.

Stories like that have grown and multiplied over the last few days. It is like history in fast motion.

One important element is that we’re collaborating with an army of other organizations — city, state, national, nonprofits, and churches — partnering together to meet the gigantic needs our area is facing. First, I want to say that I love my city and how hospitable it is. I have lived here most of my life - almost 70 years. I am a “Spokie” if there ever was one. It’s a remarkable place that mobilized at a supersonic speed. I sat in a meeting yesterday with over 800 city and state leaders, all committing to unify around providing concrete help to the thousands who are homeless, displaced, or emotionally distraught. We’re resolutely one of those in that group.

The fires are still active, but the last two days have been what I would call a grace; they have been cooler, and the winds have died down, so several of the fires have slowed to a crawl. That said, we still have numerous people in our church who are in the fire zones and can’t even get out of their houses. Over the years, the smoke was just a disruptive inconvenience — but this is the first time it’s crept into our city in any kind of pervasive way. They say over 846 structures have been consumed, but I can’t see how they’d have a final number yet. Many of the areas are inaccessible, so my guess is that number will grow much larger in the days and months ahead.

Many have asked me for a tangible way to help, so to be more concrete: we at Immanuel Church have created a giving option for those wondering what they can do. I can personally guarantee that every dime contributed to this fund will be used directly toward this emergency. One good thing about working with a group like us, a local church, is that our entire community is set up to give personal attention to specific needs.

If you’re interested, the link is immanuelspokane.org/serve-give. Go to the bottom and hit the “Give” button. Once there, you’ll find a drop-down menu labeled “Fund.” Click it, then select “Wildfire Recovery.” It will walk you through the giving process from there. This way, the money is clearly designated exclusively for meeting needs related to the Spokane fires.

Peace to each of you!

Rob