Arrest made on arson charge tied to one of the three blazes
Firefighters working three wildfires that have displaced tens of thousands of people near Washington state’s second-largest city took advantage of cooler weather to establish containment lines around the perimeters of all three blazes, officials reported Wednesday.
The fires have destroyed about 850 buildings since they ignited last weekend. No deaths have been reported. Damage assessment crews have yet to determine the exact number of homes lost or damaged.
Roughly 67,000 people were forced to evacuate. The city of Spokane is the second-largest in Washington state.
Crews were focused on reinforcing containment lines Wednesday, according to officials. But the forecast called for hotter, drier, and breezier conditions later in the week. Temperatures, which had been in the 80s over the previous two days, were expected to climb into the upper 90s — 36 to 37 degrees Celsius — with less humidity.
Authorities said one of the three fires was deliberately set, and a man was arrested and charged with arson, the Associated Press reported.