Riverside wildfire recovery
Project summary
On Saturday, Aug. 1, wildfires near Riverside State Park and the Spokane River Centennial State Park Trail prompted level 3 evacuations. Over the next several days, two wildfires – the Old Trails and Autumn Lane fires – burned into the park and caused significant damage to the landscape. Structural damage was limited to fencing, trail signage, kiosks and a picnic shelter. The beloved suspension bridge at Riverside’s Bowl & Pitcher survived.
Riverside is what we sometimes describe as a “trails” park, with more than 100 miles of trail across its 12,000 acres. Unfortunately, the wildfires devastated the trail infrastructure and left the park susceptible to significant erosion along the Little Spokane River. In total, there is more than 1,500 acres of affected state park property.
While we’re counting ourselves fortunate in the short term, our hearts are with the people of Spokane who were impacted by the fires. It’s our community that makes this park so special.
Find Spokane-area wildfire updates here.
Latest updates
Recreation reopenings
8/28 update: More of park reopens
Riverside State Park and the Spokane River Centennial State Park Trail have reopened many areas except where listed below. In addition to harming a sensitive, recovering landscape, you may be issued a ticket for accessing closed areas of the park.
View a map of what's open and what's closed here.
- Park areas south of Seven Mile Road remain closed 
- The Centennial Trail remains closed from Equestrian Lane to the Wilbur Trailhead
- Marchand Trailhead and trails 
- Seven Mile Trailhead, Airstrip and trails 
- Wilbur Trailhead & Trails
- Burn Area Trailhead 
- Morin Trailhead 
- Park areas north of Seven Mile that remain closed: 
- Little Spokane River Water Trail 
- St. Georges put-in 
- Knothead Valley Trailhead and trails 
- Indian Painted Rocks 
Bowl & Pitcher is open and visitors can access the bridge, however the trails on the west side of the bridge are closed.
Respect all closures
Please stay out of all closed areas of the park. Wildfire impacts in these areas are significant, and we need your support to help the land and our trails recover.
We have closures in place for several different purposes:
- Safety closures for hazard trees and other dangerous conditions (such as large holes where trees burned and uneven ground from bulldozer activity to create fire containment lines
- Work zone safety closures for heavy equipment assisting in hazard tree removal and landscape restoration
- Forest restoration, including slope stabilization in areas where we anticipate significant erosion
- Rehabilitation closures to allow the land to rest and recover and give wildlife a place to escape into without the presence of humans
When you go into a closed area, you are not only putting yourself risk, but you are causing more damage to an environmentally sensitive area that is trying to recover from a catastrophic event. From the wildlife to the trees to the soils – the park needs your support to recover. Please protect yourself and protect Riverside.
Camping and events
Camping reservations at Riverside have been reopened as of Aug. 28.
Park events scheduled through for the remainder of 2026 have been canceled. Event organizers with events planned in Riverside beyond September are encouraged to contact the park office to discuss options.
Looking ahead at what's to come
The areas of Riverside that will remain closed for the foreseeable future suffered significant damage in the wildfires, or are directly adjacent to areas that did. They will require ongoing work and may never look the same as they did prior to August 2026.
As seasonal weather conditions allow, State Parks crews will continue their assessments, restoration and rehabilitation work through the end of the year and through next spring.
Next steps for the park recovery areas are weather dependent. Riverside is known to have heavy windstorms and variable winters. With so many standing dead trees, damaged trees and significant risk of erosion on its slopes, staff will not know the broader scope of damage and restoration needs until the spring.
Trail work
Many of Riverside’s trails have been severely damaged or completed destroyed. It will take time for staff to repair, rebuild or reroute trails. In some places, we may have to start from scratch.
Trail impacts include:
- Damage from heavy equipment during firefighting efforts and post-fire cleanup, including bulldozer lines, grader compaction and fire lines
- Deep holes from burnt tree stumps and roots beneath the trail surface
- Fallen trees, large rocks and other debris
- Inconsistent, missing and/or damaged trail surfaces
- Eroding slopes into trails
Erosion
The areas of the park that burnt the hottest have no living ground cover, nature’s “glue” that holds everything in place. Without grasses, forbs, shrubs, mosses, tree roots or other organic materials to hold the soil and any of its remaining nutrients in place, erosion risk is extreme. This is also some of the steepest terrain in the park.
A regular rainstorm would cause erosion in this area, but a major weather event or recreating in this delicate environment would could cause significant erosion and harmful impacts to the Little Spokane River.
State Parks will be placing erosion control material in the highest risk areas, but we can’t cover every slope. We’re depending on our visitors to help us protect this special place and allow it to heal by staying out of closed areas of the park.
Hazard trees
Staff have already started removing dead-standing burnt hazard trees threatening roadways, day-use areas, campgrounds and trails. The removal process will take time to be completed safely.
This work will continue through the end of the year, as weather allows, but it will be an ongoing effort. While we are removing dead trees, we won’t know which damaged living trees will survive until the spring growing season. Into the future, other natural forces like bark beetles will continue to kill off weaker trees that may pose a threat to visitors or increase fire risk and need to be removed. Our Arbor Crew will be continuously working in this area for the coming years.
We are prioritizing tree assessments near neighborhoods, along roadways, in day-use areas and on the Centennial Trail.
Staff have just begun accessing the park’s severely burnt areas to assess the full damage.
Avista is actively working on their transmission corridor through the park. They will have heavy equipment in the burned area for some time.
Recovery timeline
While much of the park is welcoming visitors back, large sections are not anticipated to reopen until spring or summer 2027, weather dependent. Even after the park reopens, visitors should expect to see burn scars and a recovering landscape for years to come. There are a lot of unknowns at this point, but we're guaranteed a long road to recovery — and “recovery” doesn't mean the park will ever look the same.
