FIRESTORM ''91" - AT A GLANCE

Eastern Washington experienced a record dry fall this year producing fuel moistures in mid-October typical of those normally encountered in mid-August. On Wednesday, October 16, 1991, gale force winds gusting up to 62mph crossed Northeast Washington through Spokane, Stevens, Pend Oreille, and Lincoln Counties, and through Idaho and Western Montana. The winds hit the Spokane area between 0800 and 0830, knocking down trees and power lines. The first fire was reported west of Spokane at the Spokane International Airport at 0849. Within the first hour 39 alarms had been dispatched, the second hour brought 57 more, and the third hour another 93. In all, over 3,000 9-1-1 calls were received by fire dispatchers in the first 24 hours and 420 dispatches were made.

Fire resources in Spokane County were all committed within the first three hours as many major fires involved or threatened residential areas west, north and south of Spokane. All mutual aid resources were quickly depleted in this rapidly escalating onslaught, and dispatchers began to "triage" calls, sending units to only life threatening situations or structures confirmed involved or threatened, by reallocating resources from other incidents. Companies operated in the "hit and run" mode for the first 24 hours, literally running from one alarm to the next. Many crews were faced with performing on-scene structural triage to identify defensible versus non-defensible structures, letting homes burn which they could not protect. Six fire command teams were activated by the DNR to control the fires in Eastern Washington. Two of these teams were in place in Spokane County on Thursday, October 17, as several major incidents were grouped together into these two "complex commands". In all 93 fires were burning covering over 36,500 acres, killing one civilian, and destroying 110 homes and hundreds of vehicles and out-buildings. The combined fire perimeter was in excess of 100 miles.

On Friday evening, October 18, as firefighters continued suppression efforts, the fire weather meteorologist on-site brought us the first alert of additional trouble. The prediction was for another storm of like magnitude hitting the area late Sunday evening or early Monday.

By noon Saturday, October 19, the two Spokane area complexes were not yet contained and the 13,840 acre 9-Mile Fire northwest of Spokane was only 50 percent contained. Additional resources were moved from all other complexes to gain containment before the winds hit. The City of Spokane and the adjacent urban interface, approximately 350,000 population, was now surrounded on three sides by fret Fire Command felt it was probable that additional fires would start and that it was possible the 9-Mile Fire could jump the Spokane River and extend to the Chattaroy Fire, creating a massive fire directly north of the City of Spokane. It was on Saturday that a State of Emergency was declared jointly by Spokane County Commissioners and the City of Spokane. An expanded Unified Command was initiated involving the City, County, and DNR. This new layer of Fire Command was imposed on top of the existing two complex commands to handle new incidents and to provide additional resources to existing teams as needed. The fires were prioritized in terms of their threat to the urban population, and resource allocations were matched to meet the priority needs. The operational objective was to protect in place the urban population and property of Spokane County. The challenge was to blend together all the players; including existing fire command teams, existing and expanded dispatch resources, local fire departments/districts, emergency services, law enforcement, and support organizations, in a 24 hour period and to work together as a cohesive team to accomplish the mission. The extensive use of ICS and staffing key ICS positions with both a local fire department and a DNR person facilitated this process. Also on Saturday, 50 structural engines, 100 wildland engines, 20 water tenders, 12 dozers, and two class-A foam strike teams were ordered to augment existing resources by Sunday afternoon. They were mobilized principally from Western Washington and Oregon. Anticipating these resources, Unified Fire Command designated three staging areas: one at the Spokane County Fairgrounds, one at Joe Albi Stadium/Marine Corps Reserve, and one at Fairchild Air Force Base. Spokane County was divided into four branches, and branch managers were appointed to coordinate and control resource needs and assignments in each branch. The key element to a coordinated effort was the assignment of an on-scene incident commander to the existing fire incidents who could communicate face to face with the existing DNR incident commander and who could provide instant radio reports to his branch manager of situation status or resource needs so Unified Fire Command could respond quickly to any situation.

By 1000 hours Monday, October 21, the second storm arrived as predicted bringing with it winds to 52 mph As fires flared up, fanned by high winds, the on-scene incident commander would request resources and strike teams were quickly dispatched to assist. A total of 16 additional strike teams were deployed throughout the day. By 1600 hours the winds had calmed and all major fires were contained within existing lines and, thanks to efforts of over 4,000 firefighters, over 400 engine companies, a massive air attack by 20 aircraft, and hundreds support personnel who worked around the clock, the threat had passed.

We began demobilization at 0800 on Tuesday, October 22, with the structural strike teams taking priority due to a predicted snow storm in the Cascades.

This incident was the worst threat to life and property in Spokane's History, and we could not have dealt with a disaster of this magnitude without the assistance provided by you and many others from throughout the Northwest, the DNR and ODF.