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Monday brings another hard day for firefighters in Washington state, where more than 5,000 homes remain under evacuation orders due to rapidly spreading wildfires.
The fast-moving flames have already destroyed about 600 homes, businesses and other buildings around Spokane, burning more than 8 square miles.
Officials say fifteen major fires were burning across the state on Sunday, with some 4,000 people involved in fighting the flames.
As of Monday morning, firefighters had not contained the largest inferno: a complex of several fires combined.
Major damage but no deaths
No deaths have been reported, but officials say gusty winds, dry conditions, and steep terrain continue to drive the fires, making it difficult for crews to get ahead of fast-spreading flames.
“What we’re hearing, kind of, you know, at scale, is this is at the same level of a Altadena Eaton Fire or a Palisades sort of event,” Benjamin Cossel, a spokesperson for the California Interagency Incident Management Team 7, which is in Washington to help with the fires, told CBS. “We know we have more than 600 structures that have been destroyed, and we’re very certain that that number will increase as firefighters are able to get into areas that they couldn’t get into before because it was just too hot.”
The Washington governor has declared a state of emergency, while FEMA has approved federal funding to help battle several of the fires.
Looking ahead, forecasters say the region stays hot and dry through much of the week. Red flag warnings are still in effect for parts of eastern Washington as the fire emergency grows and appears to be getting worse by the hour.
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