SPOKANE, Wash – The Old Trails Fire that destroyed hundreds of homes in Spokane earlier this month also burned down a church near Riverside State Park.
Riverside Real Life Church was just founded in 2023, right along Nine Mile Road in northwest Spokane.
It was the home church for hundreds of people. All that’s left now are some beams and burned parts of the HVAC system.
Church leaders said the fire moved quickly and there wasn’t time to go in and save anything.
The lead pastor says that while the church may be gone, the energy that made it special remains.
“Really, for us, it really comes down to the community of people,” lead pastor Kelly Armstrong said. “Because the building is not the church — the people make the building into a church. And so, we can be that elsewhere.”
The church was adjacent to the Wind River/Westgate neighborhood, where entire streets were reduced to ash. Several church members lost their homes in the fire.
Armstrong and fellow pastor Zak Sommers say that destruction is just as devastating.
“There’s countless homes and countless families that, man, their life is forever changed,” Sommers said.
Church members have been meeting at other churches in the area, but Armstrong said they plan to eventually rebuild on the same site.
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