FEMA has approved nine fire management assistance grants for Washington between 1 January and Monday, more than at this point in any year in a record that begins in 1970. The previous high through 10 August was eight, in 2014; no other year exceeds five. Washington’s all-time full-year record is twelve, set in 2015 — a year that had only three by this date.
Four of the nine are Spokane County’s: the Upriver Fire on 16 June, then Old Trails, Fairview and Autumn Lane, all approved on the evening of 1 August, Pacific time, within nine hours of each other. The county had never previously drawn more than two federal fire declarations in a year, and has thirteen in total since FEMA began coding declarations to counties in 1998.
The grants pay 75% of a state’s eligible firefighting costs on a fire that threatens to become a major disaster, and they are approved fire by fire while it burns. FEMA numbers them itself in each announcement, so the count of nine is the agency’s own; what its releases do not say is that the number is a record, or that a quarter of this year’s national total for the state landed in one county in one night.
The two federal records also disagree about one of them. FEMA’s press release says the Fairview Fire was burning in "Steven County". Its declaration record designates the fire to Spokane County, and so does the Washington State Patrol order that mobilised state crews that afternoon at the request of Spokane County Fire District 9, which places the fire near Mead, inside Spokane County.