With a wildfire bearing down, officials on Friday gave orders for evacuation of the entire town of Medical Lake, Wash.
Pushed by 35 mph winds, the Gray Fire grew from an estimated 500 acres to nearly 3,000 in the span of a few hours Friday afternoon, according to tweets from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. By 5 p.m., it had already scorched property within the city limits.
“We know that some homes have burned. We don’t know how many,” said Joe Smillie, a spokesman for the department. “This blew up really big, really fast. It’s been really hot the last week.”
Smillie said it wasn’t yet clear what caused the fire.
Medical Lake is home to nearly 5,000 people and is about 12 miles southwest of Spokane.
The agency was encouraging people to seek shelter at a high school in the neighboring town of Cheney.
Smillie said officials were focused on evacuating the town quickly and getting people out of harm’s way.
“Sheriff’s deputies have been going door to door,” Smillie said.
The Spokesman-Review newspaper, based in Spokane, reported that law enforcement officers were racing from home-to-home Friday afternoon telling residents they might only have minutes to leave before the fire arrived.
Two other fires started in other parts of Washington state on Friday afternoon. The fires, in Washington’s Douglas and Whitman counties, were both about 5,000 acres as of about 5 p.m., Smillie said.
Much of inland Washington state was under a red flag warning on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
“Warm, dry winds will continue through the afternoon producing critical fire conditions,” forecasters wrote.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
