Historic wildfires burn through Washington State

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**Robin Young** (0:17)
WBUR podcasts, Boston.

**Bob Ferguson** (0:22)
My job is to communicate very clearly to everybody from the president on down just how dire and devastating the situation is here.

**Chris Bentley** (0:30)
Washington's governor says wildfires are devastating Spokane.
It's Monday, August 3rd, and this is Here & Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR Boston. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, President Trump's so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund to pay out his allies and protect his family from tax audits is dead, according to a new memo from the acting attorney general. But is it really dead? Dead?

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It's just unclear to what extent this is going to be legally binding.

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Also, new rules for AI try to make the industry safer without constraining American companies too much in what many in the government see as a race with China.

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Each of these regulations actually impinges on the other goal.

**Chris Bentley** (1:27)
That story coming up in about 10 minutes. But first, wildfires have forced the evacuation of more than 60,000 people in Spokane County, Washington, raging through hot, dry grasslands and destroying hundreds of homes in what local officials have called the largest natural disaster in Spokane's history.
We got in touch with Washington's Governor Bob Ferguson, who spoke to Robin Young from the Emergency Operations Center in Spokane.

**Bob Ferguson** (1:54)
Well, it's devastating. And just so your listeners have an understanding, we're talking about within the city limits of Spokane. These are just neighborhoods in the city that have just been wiped out.

**Robin Young** (2:04)
Just unbelievable. What are you doing for people?

**Bob Ferguson** (2:09)
Yeah, so multiple things. So obviously, we have first responders dealing with the crisis at hand of these fires that are not contained. These just swept through neighborhoods overnight last night. So truly devastating. Number two, obviously, we're working closely with all of our partners at the local, state, and federal level.
I had a conversation with President Trump yesterday, multiple conversations with Secretary Mullen. We put in our request immediately to the federal government for an emergency declaration to get immediate relief. So we're just really moving on all fronts as you might imagine, to get all the assistance we can for individuals when it comes to housing, who are now literally out of their homes, food, search and rescue, you name it. We're just doing everything we can to address the situation on multiple fronts.

**Robin Young** (2:52)
Well, we just spoke a few minutes ago with Kathy Pajamola.
She's in Spokane, four of her adult kids and their families, how to evacuate from their homes in the North Spokane neighborhood of Indian Trail. You're familiar with it. Some of these kids are with her, some were in hotels. Let's listen to a little.

**Kathy Pajamola** (3:11)
I had grandkids with me and they're asking, are we going to die? I mean, it was just traumatizing. So now I think it's the PTSD and dealing with the aftermath.
We're actually heading out here in a minute to bring tables and set up for, to give away clothes and helping folks have lost everything. And I'm talking burned down to the ground on the chimneys left.

**Robin Young** (3:31)
And that just broke my heart, you know?

**Bob Ferguson** (3:33)
Yes. And that's, she accurately describes as people literally losing everything. And I think the number that we've heard for number of individuals evacuated from Spokane is 60,000. Just put a context on that Robin. The city's population is about 230,000. That gives a sense of scale. When I stay in Spokane, I don't stay in a hotel and I'm visiting the city. I stay with a longtime friend. Their house had to be evacuated and we don't know what the status of their home is at this time. And that's just typical for now, many, many individuals here in this area.

**Robin Young** (4:04)
Well, we're going to stay in touch with Kathy. We promised we would. But what we're hearing there is you have to deal with the physical threat. You know, where do people go? How to save lives, get people out.
But we're just hearing about the mental health impact.

**Bob Ferguson** (4:18)
Yes. I mean, I can't really quite imagine going through an experience. And this moved very, very quickly, by the way. This happened in a matter of hours. Things went from a relatively normal situation, high threat of fire, to literally that fire sweeping through neighborhoods and wiping them out. And so I can only imagine for what that's like for individuals and families to have that experience, have to evacuate, to try and save their loved ones, their pets, their property. It would be truly traumatizing.