As families flee walls of flame in Spokane County, the disaster is exposing what conservatives have warned for years — neglected forests, not just weather, are fueling the West’s worst fires.

The smoke over Spokane County tells a story that goes well beyond a bad weather day. As families load photo albums and pets into cars with minutes to spare, the scenes unfolding across Eastern Washington are a gut-punch — and a warning the state’s leadership has ignored for far too long.

The Old Trails Fire tore through the region with terrifying speed this weekend, whipped by high winds and bone-dry brush into a blaze that’s already forced Level 3 “Leave Now” evacuations across multiple communities. Thousands of structures remain under threat, and entire neighborhoods have watched their homes reduced to embers in a matter of hours.

Governor Bob Ferguson declared a statewide emergency and burn ban as the scale of the disaster became clear, describing footage of residents driving through their own neighborhoods watching house after house go up in flames. It’s the kind of moment that demands more than sympathy — it demands answers.

A State Caught Flat-Footed Again

The National Weather Service’s rare high-severity Red Flag Warning across Central and Eastern Washington should have been the final alarm bell. Instead, the fires moved faster than the response, forcing emergency evacuations not just from homes but from a veterans’ hospital, water treatment facilities, and local power infrastructure — the kind of critical assets that shouldn’t be caught off guard by a wildfire season Washington sees nearly every summer.

More than 200,000 acres are currently burning statewide, with thousands of firefighters and National Guard personnel racing to hold the line. For the families who’ve called these neighborhoods home for generations, none of that changes the reality waiting for them when the smoke finally clears.