Safe Shelter

• Red Cross
• YMCA
• City resources
• Childcare

Food

• World Central Kitchen
• Second Harvest
• Salvation Army
• Feast World Kitchen

Financial Assistance

• Innovia
• City HOME Fund
• United Way
• SNAP
• Catholic Charities
• Washington Trust
• Red Cross

Essentials

• Project Beauty Share
• Partners INW
• Victory Faith
• Plato's Closet

Pets

• WASART
• SpokAnimal & HEART

Financial Assistance

• Insurance checklist
• Property tax relief
• Long-term recovery
• After the Fire Washington

Wildfires can be frightening and confusing for children—even if your family wasn't directly evacuated. KSPS PBS is here to help with trusted, age-appropriate resources from PBS KIDS and Sesame Workshop that can help children understand what's happening, express their feelings, and build resilience.

Start Here

Talking to Young Children About Wildfires (PBS KIDS)
Practical advice from early childhood experts on answering difficult questions honestly, reassuring children, and helping them feel safe.

Sesame Workshop: Here for Each Other – Wildfires
A free family guide featuring child-friendly explanations, conversation starters, calming activities, and ideas for helping children process big emotions together. Available in English and Spanish.

Helping Children Through Scary Times
PBS KIDS and Sesame Workshop also offer videos, breathing exercises, social-emotional activities, and guidance for parents to help children navigate fear, uncertainty, and disruption.

Sesame Street - Emergencies Collection

Resources to help you support your child during emergencies and difficult situations, with simple guidance for what to do, what to say, and how to help children feel safe and secure.

Coming Soon from KSPS PBS

As part of our response to the Spokane Complex Fire, KSPS PBS will be distributing free PBS KIDS books, activity kits, and family resources at evacuation centers, community resource fairs, and here at the KSPS PBS station.

These materials are designed to:

• Help children understand what's happening in age-appropriate ways.
• Encourage conversation between children and trusted adults.
• Support emotional well-being through reading and play.
• Provide educational activities while families recover.

Check this page for upcoming distribution locations and schedules.

When wildfires and other disasters strike, the systems we rely on every day--cellular networks, internet service, and electricity--can become overloaded, damaged, or unavailable. Some rural communities may not have reliable access to those services even under normal conditions.

That's why broadcast television remains part of our nation's critical emergency communications infrastructure.

KSPS PBS is a designated participant in the Emergency Alert System (EAS), delivering official emergency messages from authorized local, state, and federal agencies directly to homes and communities across the Inland Northwest.

Our signal reaches viewers through a network of more than 30 mountaintop transmission sites serving Eastern Washington, North Idaho, Western Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia. Those sites are engineered with resilient communications systems and backup power to help keep emergency information flowing when other technologies are unavailable or out of reach.

Behind that network is our engineering team, monitoring and maintaining this infrastructure around the clock. We also work closely with local emergency management agencies and fellow broadcasters to strengthen emergency communications throughout our region.

Whether you're watching with an antenna or through a cable or satellite provider, KSPS PBS is committed to helping ensure that trusted, official emergency information reaches the communities we serve when it matters most.

Public television is more than programming. It's part of the infrastructure that helps keep communities informed, connected, and safe during emergencies.