EF&R crew, battalion chief deployed to Spokane wildfires

Published 4:00 pm Tuesday, August 4, 2026

As the Spokane wildfires began to rage, Eastside Fire & Rescue (EF&R) sent a King County Strike Team leader and a brush truck crew to provide assistance with other Washington state and national firefighters within the last week.

The battalion chief drove to Spokane from the Eastside and the three-person brush truck was pre-positioned in the Cle Elum area before moving toward the wildfire area, according to EF&R public information officer Catherine Imboden.

“We have the most wild-land capability of any organization here on the west side, so we are brush-truck heavy,” she said. “Brush trucks are the best when it comes to getting in there, especially for wild-land firefighting. It just takes a different type of vehicle (brush trucks) because you’re dealing with different types of terrain, off-road terrain, oftentimes complex areas to get into to fight fire.”

As the wind began severely kicking up on Aug. 1, the brush truck was ready for deployment to the Spokane incident and headed out at around noon that day. It’s a set-up-and-wait-for-orders situation, Imboden said.

The firefighters began their tough 40-hour operational shift at the Old Trails fire, then shifted to the Autumn Lane fire until they were relieved of their duties and took an eight-hour break. After the break, they were back out fire fighting.

Imboden said the initial shift was so lengthy “due to the amount of tremendous loss they were experiencing in the Spokane area, complete lack of resources, the wind gusts, pushing fire, and the kind of conditions they were seeing over there.”

While FaceTiming with the crew members while airdrops were occurring behind them, Imboden said they spoke of a chaotic scene with fierce wind gusts and ember casting everywhere.

“They said that they were just going point to point for protection of basically anything they could save,” she said.

Because of the dryness throughout the state, EF&R has crews fighting wildfires in copious areas.

To prepare firefighters for incidents like in Spokane and other areas, EF&R hosts a large wildfire training drill in May and crews are trained year round.

“The resources right now are so thin across the state for wild-land firefighters, they’re just being sent in every direction,” Imboden said. “So we spare what we can and send them out as long as it’s not affecting our service levels here and our ability to service our community.”

During wildfire season, Imboden said that EF&R encourages people to be safe about chains dragging, not parking their car in tall weeds, not discarding cigarettes and more.

Auburn-based Valley Regional Fire Authority (VRFA) sent a team of four firefighters on Aug. 1 to Spokane to help fight the wildfires that are destroying the city.

They took a standard fire engine and are currently assigned to structure protection, said VRFA spokesperson Kelly Hawks.

Two firefighters from Kent-based Puget Sound Fire are assisting with the wildfires in Spokane and other parts of Eastern Washington.

“We deployed two firefighters on a 1,500-gallon tender on July 23 to the Railroad Fire, near Vantage,” said Puget Sound Fire spokesperson Pat Pawlak in a Aug. 3 email in response to questions from the Kent Reporter. “Since they have been there, they have been diverted to a couple of other fires in Eastern Washington. They are now on their way to the Spokane fires.”

A tender truck is a specialized vehicle that can transport large volumes of water to fire scenes, especially valuable for rural, remote or wildfire areas where municipal fire hydrants are missing or unusable.

The three fires that are part of the Spokane Complex have scorched more than 10,000 acres, according to figures updated Aug. 3. Initial estimates indicate around 700 homes and other buildings had burned. No deaths were reported as of midday on Aug. 3.

On Aug. 3, the state’s entire congressional delegation — 10 Democrats and two Republicans — wrote to President Donald Trump, urging him to approve Gov. Bob Ferguson’s request for an expedited emergency declaration in response to fires burning in multiple counties.

Ferguson, a Democrat, praised the responsiveness so far of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Trump administration. He said state officials met with FEMA representatives on the morning of Aug. 3 and that the federal agency was already moving additional resources into the state.

The initial FEMA assistance could include search and rescue, debris removal, medical supplies, temporary shelter and generators.

Reporters Madeleine Goldberger, Steve Hunter and the Washington State Standard contributed to this report.