Neighbors battle Old Trails Fire to save homes on Five Mile Prairie

SPOKANE — When the Old Trails Fire raced toward homes on Five Mile Prairie, Sergey Topik faced a choice: evacuate to safety or stay and fight for his property. He chose to stand his ground.

“This is my childhood. This is my whole life,” Topik said. “So I couldn’t let it just burn down. I told myself I wasn’t going to evacuate until the firefighters evacuated.”

While neighbors fled and firefighters urged residents to leave, Topik, his brother Yasha, his father, and a next-door neighbor grabbed hoses and shovels and began battling the encroaching flames. The group worked through the night, using dirt and water to suppress the fire as it crept closer to their homes.

“I didn’t think twice of what’s going to be next, started helping him out,” the neighbor Aleksey Zhuk said. “Me and Serge, we were using a lot of shovel and literally we used dirt to suppress the fire.”

Sergey praised his Yasha and his dad, saying they put in just as much work, if not more, than he did.

The efforts of the group and firefighters on scene protected not only their own homes but also those of neighbors whose properties sat just feet away from the advancing fire.

“These men, they’re the hero of this, all of this, every bit of it,” Debra Mitchell who lives on Five Mile Prairie, said. “Because they weren’t afraid. They just got out and they did it. And to me, it’s like you don’t find people like that these days.”