Another Fire, Another Planned ‘Smart City’?

Fires in eastern Washington have created chaos and destruction in the Spokane region.

The fires started Friday and resulted in at least two deaths, according to the Associated Press.

Hundreds of structures burned in the process, the outlet noted.

“Two major fires burning in Washington state have scorched more than 20,000 acres outside Spokane and forced thousands of people to evacuate,” CBS Evening News stated.

Two major fires burning in Washington state have scorched more than 20,000 acres outside Spokane and forced thousands of people to evacuate. pic.twitter.com/O3gvZ8eOdb

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) August 21, 2023

AP reports:

A body was found in the area burned by the Oregon fire north of Spokane on Sunday afternoon, fire officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

Another person died in connection with the Gray fire that started Friday west of Spokane, authorities said over the weekend.

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Gov. Jay Inslee visited the burned areas Sunday and declared a statewide emergency. Those fires have destroyed at least 265 structures and, together with others, have burned more than 53 square miles (137 square kilometers) combined around the state this year.

Footage from eastern Washington resembles the destruction in Maui.

WATCH:

BREAKING UPDATE: A state of emergency has been declared in Spokane County, WA, due to the wildfires burning around the area.

According to the Washington Department of Natural Resources, the Gray Fire in Medical Lake is now 10% contained. pic.twitter.com/2L4PJa4zZ5

— Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) August 20, 2023

The cause of the inferno remains under investigation.

Devastating wildfires destroy homes, claim two lives in Spokane County

Causes of both fires were under investigation.

Read more ⬇️https://t.co/sHs4HUUKTZ

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) August 22, 2023

KXLY reports:

Progress on building fire lines and a chance of rain in the forecast brings some hope Monday morning that crews can get a handle on two major wildfires burning in Spokane County.

The Gray Fire in the Medical Lake area and the Oregon Road fire burning in north Spokane County near Elk have torched a combined 20,000 acres and more than 200 structures, many of them homes.

Both fires started Friday afternoon and quickly exploded. People living in the are of both fires had to get out quickly.

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Many are in evacuation shelters and don’t know yet if they’ll have a home when they return.

Whole of Washington State is under inferno alert as wildfires continue to burn pic.twitter.com/w4LPJ6rq4f

— David Wolfe (@DavidWolfe) August 21, 2023

We can bury our heads in the sand and believe the mainstream climate change narrative as the cause of these fires or dig a little deeper to find suspicious ‘coincidences.’

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wants us to “decarbonize our economy” to survive the fires.

WATCH:

However, further research indicates the plans for Spokane’s future.

Did you know Spokane is one of the “top smart city projects in the nation?”

WATCH:

https://twitter.com/Truthpole/status/1693320408433639898

“Two Spokane projects are being hailed as the one of the top smart city projects in the nation. The projects include the City of Spokane’s Cleaner River Faster program that’s designed to improve the health of the Spokane River and Urbanova’s Shared Energy Economy Model Pilot in the University District,” Spokane City published in 2020.

“IDC Government Insights named the Cleaner River Faster project as a finalist in the “smart water” category and the Shared Energy project as a finalist in the “smart buildings” category this week in the third annual Smart Cities North America Awards (SCNAA).”

From Spokane City:

Meanwhile, the Shared Energy Economy Model Pilot in the University District is designed to test the integration of energy assets—from rooftop solar and battery storage to building energy management systems—that can be shared and used for multiple purposes.

The goal is to demonstrate how both the customer and the utility can benefit from this shared energy economy model. The pilot is improving system efficiency and grid resiliency while providing building owners and non-utility generational asset owners with economic signals for decision making.

Urbanova leverages the vibrant urban advantages of Spokane to find new ways to make communities better for people. Spokane’s downtown University District is the living laboratory for scalable, replicable projects that harness data to gain insights, empower people and solve urban challenges in new ways—all with the goal of enabling healthier citizens, safer neighborhoods, smarter infrastructure, a more sustainable environment and a stronger economy.

“As you look at these urban issues facing infrastructure, especially those cities in the business of providing utilities … the reality is we need to do things in a much smarter way,” former Spokane Republican Mayor David Condon told Route Fifty in a 2016 interview.

Route Fifty noted:

Spokane’s municipal government, along with the local private utility Avista and Liberty Lake, Washington-based energy technology company Itron, have been working on their smart city endeavor for two-and-a-half years.

All local utilities are in compliance with the Clean Water Act, and the city is in the home stretch of its record-breaking Safer Stronger Smarter public works initiative—dealing with everything from the sale of green bonds for green infrastructure to stormwater reduction to the addition of recreational amenities like bike and running paths.

Reducing Spokane’s energy signature is also a top priority for local officials, but as been the case in many other cities, data integration can be a challenge. Urbanova presents the opportunity to link private-sector partners providing that data, much like Spokane has linked capital improvement projects under its streets through a single plan.

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“In spring of 2014, a small group of inquisitive and action-oriented Spokane community members headed to the Rocky Mountain Institute to spend four days in Colorado’s mountains and immerse themselves in deep sector knowledge of smart city initiatives worldwide. This Core Group represented public, private, and educational entities, each with potential individual benefits from Smart City implementation,” Meeting of the Minds wrote.

The Rocky Mountain Institute is a climate change-pushing nonprofit linked to the World Economic Forum.

From the WEF:

The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is an independent, entrepreneurial, non-profit think-do tank focused on accelerating the transition to a clean, prosperous and secure low-carbon energy future. Over its 35-year history, RMI has established its reputation as one of the thought-leading institutions on the energy transformation. Its $30 million in annual revenue is earned from private-sector consultancy as well as philanthropy in energy and resources, built environment and integrative design.

Via Meeting of the Minds:

The time spent, carved out of busy schedules with the hopeful expectation of gathering insights and building relationships, was definitely worth it. Despite our different objectives, the team quickly grasped the benefits a smart city could bring, especially if we envisioned the future possibilities together. We left with a shared commitment to explore and model smart city systems in Spokane to achieve our collective goals and aspirations to better the economy, environment and well-being of our community.

In fact, Spokane had plans of becoming a ‘Smart City’ research center.

“In 2015, Spokane was picked to be one of the first 10 cities to participate in a yearlong program sponsored by Envision America, a nonprofit organization that came from an Obama-era White House initiative to explore how cities can deliver services more efficiently,” The Spokesman-Review reported.

From The Spokesman-Review:

The program also aimed to help American cities become “smarter” by accelerating the use of innovative technologies addressing energy, water, waste and air quality issues.

In Spokane’s case, the collaboration that became Urbanova started as more of an academic effort looking at how a city’s many systems interact, a “system of systems,” said Kim Zentz, director of Urbanova.

The project was already in the works when the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a contest, with a $50 million prize, for cities to upgrade their transportation systems using 21st century technology. Come up with the best idea to use data-driven ideas and advanced transportation technologies “to reduce congestion, keep travelers safe, protect the environment, respond to climate change, connect underserved communities and support economic vitality,” and the money was yours.

Spokane submitted a bid, as did 76 other American municipalities, but the prize went to Columbus, Ohio.

From that loss sprang Urbanova and its air quality project. So far, 10 streetlights in and around the U-District owned by Avista, the city, Gonzaga University and WSU have been affixed with sensors from the local technology company Itron. The sensors, powered by Itron’s OpenWay Riva techonology, can connect with a network and communicate, and they cost just hundreds of dollars.