Spokane Wildfires Destroy Hundreds of Buildings as Thousands Evacuate

In the early hours of August, fire rewrote the history of Spokane, Washington, consuming hundreds of buildings and driving thousands of residents from their homes in what officials have called the city's worst natural disaster on record. The blaze moved with the indifferent speed of a major wildfire, outpacing the careful lives built in its path, while exhausted crews worked to hold whatever lines they could. Now, as the scale of loss settles into something almost too large to comprehend, a quiet shift in the weather offers firefighters what disasters rarely grant: a reason for cautious hope.