Spokane is still an active fire zone.

The cleanup is not ready for your crew.

THE FIRE IS STILL WRITING THE SCOPE

As of Monday morning, August 3, the Associated Press reported that the fires around Spokane had forced 60,000 evacuations, destroyed at least 600 homes, businesses, and other structures, and burned about 12.5 square miles. The three fires—Old Trails, Fairview, and Meadowview—were 0% contained. Cooler air and lighter wind offered some help, but no rain was forecast. Those numbers will move as crews reach more ground. The useful fact for a trades business is simpler: this is still a response zone, not a reconstruction market.

Power is part of the problem. Avista said roughly 10,000 customers were without power Sunday, down from a peak of 30,000, and two transmission lines still needed repair. That leaves room for more outages as demand moves around the damaged system. It also means a normal service call can turn into a bad dispatch fast: a client may have no power, the road may close behind your truck, or the address may move into a higher evacuation level. Spokane County says a Level 3 notice means leave now. If a crew or customer is inside one of those zones, account for people and get out before you think about the work order.

The hard part is waiting while the phone starts ringing

THE FIRST BAD BID STARTS AT THE ROADBLOCK

Emergency work will come. A clean scope will not come at the same speed. Washington Labor & Industries warns that wildfire recovery draws unregistered operators and rushed agreements, while state law requires registration for construction work that adds to or subtracts from real estate—including demolition, debris removal, fence repair, and landscaping. A legitimate shop should make its own registration, bond, liability coverage, workers' compensation account, and trade licenses easy to verify, then run the same check on every subtrade. Do not knock doors inside a disaster zone or self-dispatch because somebody posted an address online. Get a real request, confirm who can authorize the work, and wait for safe access.

Smoke creates a second gate even when the road is open. Washington's wildfire-smoke rules cover outdoor work in construction, utilities, transportation, forestry, and other sectors. Covered employers need a written response plan, worker training, air monitoring, and two-way communication; training must happen before workers encounter PM2.5 at 20.5 micrograms per cubic metre, the current NowCast AQI 72 threshold. At 35.5 micrograms per cubic metre, or NowCast AQI 101, employers must implement feasible exposure controls and make NIOSH-approved N95 respirators available for voluntary use. Moving the job, changing the schedule, reducing dust-producing work, using filtered vehicles or rooms, and adding rest are all listed controls. Do not judge this by whether the sky looks bad—use Washington Ecology or EPA PM2.5 data for the actual site.

Forest-edge jobs have another layer. Washington DNR's Industrial Fire Precaution Levels regulate certain work on state and private forestland, including saw use, welding, cutting, blasting, and other ignition risks. The level varies by shutdown zone, so check the live map instead of assuming one rule covers every Spokane address. And keep inspection drones grounded around the response: AP reported 26 unauthorized drone incursions over the fires Sunday and said two operators were cited. One roof photo is not worth grounding a suppression aircraft.

RUN THIS CHECKLIST BEFORE THE FIRST EMERGENCY CALL

Build the operating picture before you build a quote. The order matters.

  1. Account for people. Confirm which crew members, clients, jobs, vehicles, and suppliers are inside evacuation or outage areas. Do not send someone back for photos, tools, or paperwork.
  2. Freeze affected dispatches. Check the Spokane County evacuation map before every assignment, not once in the morning. Treat a Level 3 area as no-entry unless incident authorities direct otherwise.
  3. Run the smoke check. Use current PM2.5 or NowCast AQI for the actual worksite, follow the written plan, and move or reschedule work when controls cannot keep exposure inside the rule.
  4. Protect dispatch continuity. Keep crew contacts, active job notes, and customer priorities available if power or internet drops again. Test the backup connection before it becomes the only connection.
  5. Prepare claims properly. After authorities allow safe entry, photograph damage, inventory lost equipment, save receipts, and call the insurer. Washington's insurance regulator says not to discard damaged items or make permanent repairs before the insurer has had a chance to inspect and advise.
  6. Build one qualification packet. Put current registration, bond, liability coverage, workers' compensation status, trade licenses, and safety plan in one file. Send it before a client or adjuster has to ask.
  7. Quote in phases. Separate emergency stabilization, investigation, and permanent repair. State what is excluded until utilities, permits, hazardous materials, concealed damage, and insurer requirements are known.
  8. Keep drones out of response airspace. Wait for official clearance before any aerial inspection near an active incident.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Three watch items matter more than the final damage headline.

  • High confidence: utility make-safe, water mitigation, temporary weather protection, debris control, and emergency electrical work will arrive before full rebuild packages. The bottleneck will be safe access and authority to proceed.
  • Medium confidence: insurers, permits, registration checks, and documented scopes will slow awards. Shops with clean paperwork will beat faster shops with loose paperwork.
  • Watch: power interruptions may return while Avista repairs the two transmission lines and balances demand. Keep outage contingencies active until the utility says the system is stable.

B.C. crews should not read this as an open cross-border cleanup market. Canadian trade credentials do not replace U.S. work authorization, Washington registration, local trade licensing, tax, and insurance requirements. Verify every gate with qualified immigration, licensing, tax, and insurance advisers before sending people or signing work.

THE WORK WILL STILL BE THERE

People will need panels made safe, water stopped, roofs dried in, HVAC checked, fences rebuilt, and homes made livable. The businesses that help most will look boring from the outside: they will answer the phone, document the damage, verify the scope, protect the crew, and wait for the legal green light.

This is not the moment to prove how fast you can get through a roadblock. It is the moment to prove your crew comes home and the customer gets work that can survive an insurer, an inspector, and a second look.

SOURCES