VIDEO: Spokane Valley Fire Captain Duane Hughes and his wife lived in Medical Lake for almost four years, but that all changed when the Gray Fire reduced their home to rubble.
On the night of the Gray Fire, Captain Hughes was sent to protect homes near Lakeland Village. He and his crews saved at least six homes, but lost one.
"I started helping with some of the structural protection and that's when I... received a text for the level three evacuation that was going on from Medical Lake, so I immediately texted my wife and told her, yeah, she needed to get out," Hughes said. While Hughes was worrying about the house he couldn't protect, his own home in Medical Lake was up in flames. Later that evening, he went to check on his place, but stopped along the way to save as many other homes as he could.