1 dead, dozens of buildings destroyed in Washington state

A wildfire in eastern Washington state has left one person dead and destroyed dozens of structures as authorities have raced to contain blazes across the state and in the nearby Canadian province of British Columbia.

The Gray fire began in Washington around noon Friday, prompting evacuations, and had burned through 9,500 acres by Saturday morning, threatening the communities of Medical Lake and Four Lakes. The areas, less than 20 miles southwest of Spokane, have a combined population of more than 5,000.

One person has died and 185 structures have been destroyed by the fire, which was zero percent contained as of Saturday morning, according to Joe Smillie, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department

of Natural Resources.

A red-flag warning, meaning that critical fire conditions were occurring or soon would occur, was also in effect for eastern Washington and northern Idaho through Saturday evening, according to the National Weather Service.

“All Medical Lake citizens, get out now,” Mayor Terri Cooper of Medical Lake said in a Facebook post Friday. The city later warned residents that residents boil local water before drinking as a safety precaution.

Smillie added that the fire was being fueled by dry grass and wheat fields.

The fire was spreading farther south, Smillie said, closer to Cheney, a city of about 13,000 that is home to Eastern Washington University. He added that firefighters were trying to reroute the fire and stop its spread.

Photographs that the Spokane County Sheriff's

Office posted Friday on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter, showed pilots flying near a forest through a sky streaked with fire and smoke.

The state's natural resources department also warned Friday that strong winds were likely to bring a fire into the United States, toward a protected conservation area. The blaze, the Crater Creek fire, has been burning across the northern border in the British Columbia Cascades since July, consuming at least 54,000 acres. The protected land, the Loomis Natural Resources Conservation Area, is only about half that size.

Another fire in Washington, the Oregon Road fire, has threatened the community of Elk, roughly 30 miles north of Spokane. That blaze, which began Friday, has consumed more than 3,000 acres and destroyed 30 buildings, according to the state's natural resources department.