A lightning strike a mile outside Nespelem on the morning of July 16 has grown into the largest wildfire burning in Washington this year.
A Lightning Strike Near a Town of 700 The fire ignited around 6 a.m. on July 16, roughly a mile from Nespelem, a town of about 700 people that serves as the headquarters of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
A day later, personnel had grown to 1,004.
More than 1,000 residents have been displaced, many of them tribal members whose families have lived on this land for generations, and some of whom are now sheltering more than an hour's drive from home.
With the fire only 16 percent contained and mop-up still active at the town's edge, Nespelem's Level 2 status functions less as reassurance than as a warning that conditions can still change quickly enough to require Level 3 again.
The Kaiser Canyon Fire has burned more than 126,000 acres near Nespelem, destroyed at least 20 homes, and cost the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation an estimated $11.1 million, with full containment not expected until August 15.