Southern California fire crews sent to battle Spokane wildfires Play

Fire crews from LA County Fire, Santa Monica Fire and city of LA fire have been flown in to Spokane, Washington, where last weekend's fires are so destructive officials there are comparing them to the Palisades Fire that hit Malibu 18 months ago.

12 square miles of forested land on the edge of Spokane have burned in two days. More than 600 houses have burned. Thousands of houses are in danger, and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated.

Tom Clemo is an assistant fire chief from Santa Monica. He says a fire management team has been shipped to Spokane.

“California definitely leads the country in some of the natural disasters that we've had, and to that end has developed a really robust incident management team,” Clemo said. “California's fortunate to have eight of them, and as a federal asset we're able to move all over the country, and to the US territories.”

Clemo was interviewed by NBC last night, by Zoom, from Spokane. Crews from the Los Angeles region and from all across the western US and Canada have been flown into Eastern Washington state.

Clemo told NBC4 last night that keeping those fire troops organized, giving them direction and keeping them supplied is his job.

“Our job is to bring process to the chaos and help support the local communities with resources and accountability.”

As of this morning, the fires have consumed more than 8,000 acres with 0% containment. A man was arrested on an arson charge in connection with one of the fires in Spokane County, the sheriff there said.

President Donald Trump has not yet fully committed a formal expedited federal emergency declaration for Washington state. It's a blue state, and blue states are not getting the same disaster aid that red states are getting from this White House.

FEMA says it has authorized funding for 75% of eligible firefighting costs. But FEMA said that in Malibu, the Palisades and Altadena. Right now, a year and a half since the big California fires, the president is still sitting on $33 billion that California spent fighting the fires last year — money that normally would be reimbursed by the federal government.