Thousands ordered to evacuate as multiple wildfires threaten Spokane

In the late summer heat of eastern Washington, the city of Spokane found itself encircled by three simultaneous wildfires on Saturday morning, forcing authorities to issue their highest possible evacuation orders to thousands of residents. Level 3 commands — the kind that carry no ambiguity, only urgency — swept through neighborhoods, asking people to make in an instant the kind of decisions that ordinarily take a lifetime to contemplate. It is a moment that has become grimly familiar across the American West: the realization that fire does not negotiate, and that sometimes the only wisdom ava