When wildfires swept through parts of Spokane, Washington state in recent days, the scale of the destruction they left behind has been laid bare in stark side-by-side imagery. The verification team at BBC has conducted a detailed comparative analysis, cross-referencing user-posted videos captured in the immediate aftermath of the blaze with archived street-level photographs taken of the same neighborhoods before the fire reached the area.
The resulting comparison leaves no room for doubt about the ferocity of the wildfire. What once stood as occupied family homes are now nothing more than blackened, charred foundations, their structures completely reduced to ash. Private vehicles parked along residential streets have been turned into melted, burned-out hulks, their metal frames warped by the extreme heat of the advancing flames. Every frame of the comparison highlights how entire blocks of the community have been fundamentally altered by the disaster, with little left intact in the most severely affected areas.
This visual verification work comes as local emergency management teams continue to work through the process of counting damaged and destroyed structures, and accounting for displaced residents. By matching geolocated post-fire footage to pre-fire street imagery, the BBC Verify team has been able to independently confirm the scope of the damage that has already been reported by local officials, giving the public a clearer understanding of just how much the Spokane area has lost to the ongoing wildfire event.