Washington’s wildfire season continues to set grim milestones, with more than 850,000 acres burned statewide and hundreds of homes destroyed in the Spokane area — forcing residents, insurers and real estate professionals to navigate a housing market altered by disaster.
The fires have created challenges well beyond the immediate loss of homes.
Residents who escaped with little more than what they could carry are now confronting insurance claims, temporary housing and difficult decisions about whether to rebuild or leave their communities.
For real estate professionals in Spokane, the disaster has added another layer of uncertainty to an already complicated market.
Denise Thrasher — an agent with Epique Realty-affiliated Haven Real Estate Group in Spokane — said she and colleagues are adapting to rapidly changing circumstances for buyers and sellers in fire-affected areas.
“Yes, we do have to continue running the business because we do have many clients that we’re still servicing who were even not affected by the fires, and we still need to help them through their process,” Thrasher said. “I think one of the bigger things is just trying to be aware of the changes that could be coming, regarding homeowners’ insurance and buyers who need to have homeowners’ insurance prior to closing, or any buyers or sellers that we’ve had that are in the zone that were affected by the fire.”
“Those are some things that we’ve had to adjust to work around, and we’re still trying to find information like everybody else. A lot of us are very used to this situation, as well. So, attending workshops to try to learn more has also been helpful in talking to insurance agents.”
What comes next for community?
Thrasher said another primary concern has been understanding what displaced homeowners are encountering as they seek temporary or permanent housing and work through their claims.
“For folks who lost their homes and are now needing housing, we need to know what they’re facing in regard to getting any help from insurance,” she said. “There’s also many folks out here who have been taking time, effort and money to help those people out and house them.”
Agents are helping connect displaced residents with temporary rentals, but Thrasher said the process of finding permanent housing remains very complicated.
“We don’t see a lot of people who have lost their home find [a new one] yet,” she said. “There’s a lot that they have to go through as far as getting through the insurance and then deciding if they want to rebuild on that same lot, or if they’re going to move away from where they’re at. It’s all still really new and up in the air — a lot of people still handling the red tape.”
Standing homes face questions
The fires have also complicated the situation for homeowners whose properties survived.
In some neighborhoods, individual houses remain standing, but those homeowners may now have to determine whether their properties suffered less noticeable damage, said Thrasher.
“It’s interesting to see the homes that are still standing when the rest of the neighborhood has been burned down,” she said. “So, they’re also trying to figure out how those folks can move forward with their homes. I think they’re going through testing for contamination, as well. We’re also learning about contaminants that may have come about through the fire — contaminants that are floating in the air and maybe have entered other people’s homes that are still standing.
“There are many levels of damage that came along with the fires. Some people, unfortunately, have probably already been through this before, but I think the majority of people haven’t.”
Business continues through disaster
Thrasher — whose home was in an evacuation zone but spared from damage — said the fires have not brought her real estate business to a halt.
She has not personally had transactions canceled because of the fires and she has not heard colleagues report widespread cancellations.
However, properties located in evacuation zones present obvious new questions for sellers and agents.
“We were evacuated in some areas for quite some time, so with some of those [properties] they were going back and forth, trying to figure out if they should pull them off the market for a little while to give them a break,” Thrasher said. “And it can be unclear of how the sale would go in the future because of insurance, and maybe people wouldn’t deem them to be in a safe area because of fires.”
Recovery will take time
The uncertainty facing Spokane’s housing market comes as Washington’s wildfire season continues to escalate.
The state has recorded 1,456 wildfires and 851,557 acres burned this season — more than double the roughly 425,000 acres that had burned as of July 31.
Eighteen large fires remain active, according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources. The Spokane Complex fires, which began Aug. 1, destroyed more than 830 homes, according to Spokane County Assessor Tom Konis. Damage is expected to exceed $1 billion, potentially making the fires among the costliest in Washington history.
For displaced homeowners, however, the recovery is only beginning. Thrasher said the scale of the disaster means residents should expect a lengthy process across all aspects of recovery.
“I know we had a fire here a couple years ago, and there’s still people dealing with that,” Thrasher said. “So, they’re telling people to be prepared to be patient. For right now, like I said, agents are doing good work to help — a lot of people are doing good work for each other — to get through this.”
With September still ahead — historically one of Washington’s most dangerous months for wildfires — the region will be forced to balance ordinary housing market activity with extraordinary needs of communities rebuilding from disaster.
