INTERFACE Spokane
Presented by Dan Wordell, Chief Information Security Officer & Kevin Freibott, Sr Planner • City of Spokane
Join Dan Wordell and Kevin Freibott from the City of Spokane as they share how the City leveraged Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to power the response and recovery effort following this summer's devastating wildfires. They'll offer an inside look at how technology helped ensure that both response and recovery were driven by accurate, up-to-date information — and highlight the constellation of data sources and tools deployed by the City, the County, and the region during a fast-moving emergency where good information helped save homes and rebuild lives.
This past August, the Spokane region battled the fastest-spreading wildland fire in state history — a blaze that outpaced every effort to contain it. The Old Trails Fire tore through the City in a single day, destroying more than 500 homes and countless other structures across the City and surrounding County. New technologies proved critical both as the fire spread and throughout the recovery phase once the fires were under control.
Spokane has since announced a coordinated set of ordinances to ease the recovery process, including permit fee waivers, like-for-like rebuilding permissions, General Facilities Charge waivers, and more. The City also launched a new damage assessment and recovery dashboard, giving residents, staff, and partners across the City and County timely, accurate insight into structural damage.
These efforts were driven by cutting-edge assessment and analysis technologies — near-real-time imagery capture, satellite hotspot mapping, up-to-the-minute burn area data, and AI-assisted Pictometry and terrain comparisons that flagged likely damage before City staff could physically reenter burned areas. Just two days after the fire began, the City stood up a custom mobile application for on-site staff, enabling live damage assessment collection with built-in accuracy checks and multi-source confirmation. These efforts will be discussed and explored further during this session.