Washington
With a fire burning just miles away, residents of a Washington town dig in
Sentiments like these are common during high-stress wildfires throughout the rural West. As large, intense wildfires and evacuations become more common, some residents are growing tired of uprooting their lives and are growing inured to the risk — or more confident in their own abilities to manage it themselves.
That means some people are determined to stay in their homes even when authorities say they ought to leave, particularly when there are rifts in trust between communities and those managing wildfires and emergency response.
“Especially in rural communities, we’ve started seeing a lot more folks decide to stay and defend,” said Amanda Stasiewicz, an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Oregon who studies evacuation decisions. “There’s a lot of mistrust going on there.”
As fire behavior grows intense because of climate change and overgrown forests, doubts can fester in rural communities as fire managers operate more conservatively than in the past.
“People were used to seeing fires attacked in different ways decades ago and now there’s a different reality,” Stasiewicz said. “Now, we’re seeing fires act more radically, make their own weather and be more unpredictable.”
This dynamic is playing out in rural communities elsewhere.
Some Northern California residents whose homes are threatened by the Park Fire — now more than 397,000 acres and the fourth-largest in state history as of Friday morning — have similarly decided not to evacuate, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. One couple told the Chronicle that they’d soured on evacuating after they had to wait 10 days to return home after the 2018 Camp Fire.
Some 94 large fires are burning across the West, which more than 29,000 wildland firefighters are working to suppress, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Of those blazes, 28 have active evacuation orders.
“When it gets like this, it’s all hands on deck, and they’re running out of resources,” said Brad Bramlett, a public information officer assigned to the Pioneer Fire.
The Pacific Northwest, in particular, is reeling this summer as some 51 major fires burn in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. A hotter and drier-than-normal spring and summer primed the landscape to burn.
As of Friday morning, the Stehekin area was under a red flag warning for dangerous fire weather, according to the National Weather Service. The Pioneer fire had grown to more than 33,700 acres and was about 12% contained.
In most years, the fire season would only have just begun.
Stehekin’s full-time population is about 85, and its residents take small-town living to the extreme. The community famously resisted telephone service into the early 2000s.
Surrounded by glaciated peaks and the clear waters of Lake Chelan, the town swells in population during the summer, as tourists take 2.5-hour ferry rides to access trailheads in North Cascades National Park that begin in Stehekin.
The Pioneer Fire began on June 8 and has been slowly creeping north. It’s burning in some of the most challenging terrain firefighters must deal with in the U.S., with steep slopes, rocky outcrops and few trails.
“As soon as I heard about it, it was, ‘OK, here we go,’” Courtney said. “We all know how dry and early spring has been. It felt like the fire season was going to be accelerated.”
Stehekin residents have been planning and preparing, Courtney said, removing brush near homes, constructing a floating dock in the harbor and holding community meetings.
Tourists were forced away on July 25, when emergency officials raised the evacuation level to 2 of 3.
Meanwhile, firefighters have flooded into Stehekin. More than 640 fire personnel are working the fire, though not all are based in the town. Johnston said she and her staff of six have served about 200 meals a day to crews.
On Sunday, emergency officials asked everyone in the town to leave.
Magnussen said emergency management officials can’t guarantee any kind of help, particularly if the boat dock — “the only way out,” as he described it — burns.
“When they choose to stay, they’re doing so at their own risk,” he said.
Courtney said she recognizes that but worries that leaving Stehekin now could mean she won’t be able to return for weeks, if not longer. She feels her self-reliant community, which is filled with people who have boats and are used to working the land, is prepared to fend off fire, for now.
Some previous close calls have also hardened her demeanor toward fire. Courtney witnessed the 2015 Wolverine Fire, which burned more than 60,000 acres near Stehekin, and last month, she joined family and friends a few miles “down lake” to save her uncle’s property after firefighters had left.
“My tolerance has gone up,” she said.
Stasiewicz said that based on her own focus groups, surveys and interviews, sentiments like Courtney’s are becoming more common in rural communities. Evacuation often carries a stiff financial cost, she said, and some rural residents worry their properties won’t be prioritized.
“We can sometimes see rural communities lose compared to more developed areas. There is this mentality, ‘Maybe we do have to take care of ourselves,’” Stasiewicz said.
ASHBURN, Va. – The Washington Commanders have released their 2026 Training Camp schedule, with eleven open practices between August 1 and August 19, including five open to all fans and six reserved for season ticket members.
For the fifth straight year, training camp will take place at the team’s football operations headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia.
Open practices for all fans are scheduled for August 1, August 7, August 8, August 18 and August 19.
Season ticket member practices will be held August 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12.
All sessions begin at 8:30 a.m., with gates opening at 7:30 a.m.
Fans can claim free tickets beginning June 23 at 10 a.m. General admission fans may request up to six tickets and one parking pass for a single day of camp. Season ticket members can claim tickets for two member‑exclusive days in addition to one general admission day. All parking will be on site at the BigBear.ai Performance Center and requires a parking pass.
The team plans several themed events throughout camp, including Back Together Weekend on August 1, Military Appreciation Day on August 7 and Kids Day on August 8. Local youth football and community groups will also be hosted throughout the summer.
For more information visit the Washington Commanders online.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the Washington Commanders.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall is set to be drained again for repairs after algae and peeling paint appeared just weeks after a US$14.7 million renovation, while President Donald Trump threatened prison time for anyone caught damaging the pool.
The DC Water authority issued a permit to drain the 609-metre rectangular pool, it said on Monday, while the repair company said it would fix the pool as part of its warranty.
Peeling paint and algae growth have been visible in the pool since soon after Trump declared the renovation project complete on June 6. Critics have raised concerns about the no-bid contract to recoat the pool before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations next month, as well as for the ducks that use its water. Workers from the National Park Service earlier this week poured hydrogen peroxide into the pool to combat the algae.
Trump, without evidence, has blamed vandals for the state of the landmark. On Monday, he echoed a weekend threat by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro to prosecute people accused of attempting to destroy the pool.
“Please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!” Trump earlier wrote in a social media post. Destruction of federal property can carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
It was not immediately apparent what criminal or civil violation someone might commit reaching into the pool.
Half a year can be an eternity in the NBA.
Seven months ago, as Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks headed toward a divorce, Young’s value within the league had never been lower.
On Monday, Young and the Washington Wizards agreed to a new four-year, maximum-salary contract worth approximately $212.9 million, according to a league source. The fourth year of the contract will be a player option.
Young’s first-year salary is estimated to be $49.5 million, which amounts to 30 percent of the projected 2026-27 salary cap of $165 million. During the 2029-30 season, the final year of the contract, Young will earn $56.9 million if he accepts his player option.
Wizards officials would love it, of course, if Young can return to the form that made him an All-NBA Third Team player during the 2021-22 season. But at the very least, they place significant value on knowing that their team’s offense will start with him on most occasions, and that he will be around to shoulder a large portion of the scoring load while the team’s young players, who comprise the team’s long-term nucleus, continue to improve.
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That Young will receive such large annual salaries no doubt will come as a shock to many observers, especially after Young’s reputation took a beating toward the end of his Hawks tenure. The NBA rumor mill, which is often inaccurate, predicted months ago that any new deal between Young and the Wizards would average no more than $40 million annually.
But in recent weeks, Wizards decision-makers became convinced that, with the NBA’s new anti-tanking measures compelling more teams to compete, Young was going to command maximum-salary contract offers from other franchises through either a straight free-agent signing or a sign-and-trade proposal.
Because the Wizards hold Young’s Bird rights, the Wizards had the latitude to offer Young up to a five-year contract with 8 percent annual raises. But Young’s new four-year deal instead features 5 percent year-over-year raises, the maximum year-over-year raise that any other team could have offered Young as a non-Bird free agent. For Washington, the difference between signing Young to 5 percent raises instead of 8 percent raises will amount to a total savings of $8.9 million over four years.
Wizards officials are not concerned that Young’s new contract will age poorly and prevent them from making future moves to improve their roster. Anthony Davis, who is due to earn $58.5 million in 2026-27, and Young are now Washington’s highest-paid players on its young roster, but the person with the third-largest salary is big man Alex Sarr, who will be paid the relatively small sum of $12.3 million this season. At the earliest, the Wizards do not expect to approach the dreaded first apron until the 2028-29 season, when any new rookie-scale contract extensions for Sarr and Kyshawn George would go into effect.
Plus, Wizards officials reason that Young, who will turn 28 years old in September, will remain in his prime years through the end of his contract. The onerous large contracts that age the worst — potentially Jimmy Butler’s current deal with the Golden State Warriors and Paul George’s current deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, for example — tend to be contracts in which players already are past their primes at the start of their contracts.
Young is by no means a perfect player. Undersized at 6 feet 1, and undeniably more focused on the offensive end of the floor, he tended to be a significant defensive liability throughout his Hawks tenure. That trend could worsen if he begins to lose a step (or two) over the next several years.
At the same time, though, Wizards officials have always known that their lineups would have to feature enough positional size and enough defensive-oriented players to compensate for Young’s shortcomings — in the same way that the defensive liabilities of LaMelo Ball, Jalen Brunson, Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving and Donovan Mitchell (and others) are compensated for by their respective teams.
The Wizards’ decision-makers believe Davis and youngsters Bilal Coulibaly, Davis, George, Sarr and whomever they pick first overall in Tuesday night’s draft will develop into strong enough defenders to help Young.
Young appeared in only five games for Washington last season after his trade from Atlanta for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert. That was a large enough sample size to demonstrate how his gravity and his passing skill could create open shots for his new teammates. George, Tre Johnson and others should receive more wide-open 3-point looks when Young directs the offense, and Sarr and Davis should feast on lobs from Young in pick-and-rolls.
Only 16 players in NBA history have averaged at least 20 points and 10 assists per game in the same season, according to Basketball Reference. Young is one of those players, and he has done it three times, during the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. The only other players who have had at least three seasons of at least 20 points and 10 assists per game are James Harden (four times), Kevin Johnson (three times), Magic Johnson (three times), Oscar Robertson (five times), Isiah Thomas (four times) and Russell Westbrook (five times).
The franchise expects Young to make Washington’s offense more efficient and, because opponents will have to take the ball out of their net more often, give Washington’s defense more opportunities to set itself.
July 6 is the first day when new free-agent contracts may be signed and made official.
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