America Burns — 700 Homes Lost in Spokane. Two Australian Defences Could Have Saved Many of Them.
The Pacific Northwest - worst fire season in 30+ years — 2.6 million acres, 60,000 evacuated — while the two cheapest life-savers on Earth sit ignored: a sprinkler, and and a cleared firebreak zone.
Three fires — Old Trails, Fairview and Autumn Lane — tore through the suburbs of Spokane, Washington in a single afternoon, destroying more than 700 buildings and forcing over 60,000 people to evacuate.
Washington Governor Bob Ferguson called it a “nightmare situation” — “likely the worst natural disaster in Spokane history.”
Spokane’s Mayor Lisa Brown warned there is still “the potential for lives to be lost.”
One man has been arrested on suspicion of arson.
None of the fires has been contained near Spokane, a city of some 230,000 people about 280 miles - 450 km - east of Seattle.
Current wildfire map - 04 August 2026 - “more than 27,400 firefighters were battling about 100 uncontained large fires nationwide on Tuesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.”
Source: edition.cnn.com — load hyperlink to use the Nearmap feature
Q: What do Spokane, the Gironde, and Black Saturday have in common?
A: Homes built with zero fuel break — and zero ember defences.
Have a closer look at the aerial image above. The pattern is identical to Europe's 2026 carnage and Australia's 2009 and 2019-20 firestorms: houses built close-up against continuous forest, with leaf-filled gutters and shrubs acting as welcome mats for those deadly flying embers.
Australian firefighters in the midst of an Ember Attack during the Black Summer Firestorms of 2019-2020.
9 homes in 10 destroyed by wildfire are not burned by the fire front — they are ignited by embers, those burning sparks of bark, leaf and shrub that are swept high into the air and then land miles ahead of the fire-front flames.
Defence N° 1 — The Asset Protection Zone: Clear the Ground, Save the House
The rule is brutally simple: no flammable shrubs, trees or bushland within the zone next to the home.
The Safety Zone doctrine: 0–15 feet = hazardous vegetation prohibited;
15–30 feet = fuel management required — as per Colorado Springs Fire Department experience & recommendation.
Source: fire smart canada
Defence N° 2 — External Sprinkler Systems: The Roof That Fights Back
Australia — 07 February 2009 — Black Saturday — VIC CFA firefighter Trevor Vienet saved his home, himself, a mate and a dog while the world burned around him.
Trevor’s last defensive weapon was a sprinkler — similar to this one below.
Close-up of a Platypus sprinkler head — the small, spinning soldier that guards an Australian roofline against ember attack.
* LINK —> Graphic Video of a Ember-Storm Test - controlled conditions
Protecting your $million home is a serious business — there is no room for naïvety or innocence when it comes to wildfire preparations.
This not only vital for home & property protection, but as per Trevor Vienet’s experience, it can also be a Safe Harbour in a firestorm catastrophe.
The Doctrine That Must Cross the Pacific
General Sir John Monash — the engineer-soldier who refused to sacrifice men for ground in 1918 — left the doctrine that answers Spokane, the Gironde and the Black Summer alike:
Courage is not a substitute for equipment.
Not for soldiers. Not for firefighters. And not for homeowners.
The Spokane families did nothing wrong except inherit a building culture that plants forests against front doors. The solutions exist. They are proven. They are cheap.
They are simply not sufficiently deployed.
That is not a natural disaster. That is a an oversight disaster that must be addressed.
Sources & Further Reading
BBC News — Spokane wildfires: arson arrest, 700 buildings destroyed, 60,000 evacuated
CNN — Where the fires are burning in Washington & Oregon (Nearmap aerials)
Western Fire Chiefs Association — Home Ignition Zone Explained
Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety — External Sprinklers for Wildfire Defense
Frontline Wildfire — How homes catch on fire (the 90% ember rule)
Osprey on Overwatch — Wildfires Rage, Europe Burns & The Life-Saving Sprinkler
Osprey on Overwatch — Alors que l’Europe brûle : les solutions australiennes