About a year-and-a-half has passed since the Gray Fire ravaged the Medical Lake area, and some businesses in the small town west of Spokane are still struggling because of it.

“Businesses absolutely have been impacted,” says Gerri Johnson, owner of Farm Salvation, a vintage shop at 106 S. Lefevre, in Medical Lake. “I don’t have the customer base that I used to have.”

Fewer residents in the area, combined with a perception that the whole city burned down, are among the reasons for the struggles, Johnson says.

In August of 2023, the Gray Fire destroyed 240 homes in the area.

Within Medical Lake’s city limits, 55 homes were lost, 40 of which have been rebuilt and are occupied, says City Administrator Sonny Weathers. Eight more are in the process of being built.

In the areas surrounding the city of Medical Lake, including along Silver Lake to the east, about two-thirds of the homes lost have been rebuilt, although not all are occupied yet.

“They’re about 18 months out from the time of the fire,” Medical Lake Mayor Terri Cooper says. “We’re probably another 18 months out to finish.”

While much of the city’s focus has been on helping those who lost their homes and ensuring that improvements and changes are made to prevent a tragedy like that from occurring in the future, Cooper, who is Johnson’s sister, acknowledges that businesses in the area are still hurting.

“All along that shoreline of Silver Lake, those folks, they come drive through our town to get to their home, and they live somewhere else while their home is being rebuilt,” says Cooper. “For a town of 5,000, we're very dependent on those people driving through town and spending a few dollars.”

Some businesses have closed at least in part due to the fire, Cooper says. The Fischin’ Hole Saloon, at 114 E. Lake, closed, but is being reopened by a new owner as The Barrel soon.

About a month ago, the Lefevre Street Bakery & Cafe, at 123 S. Lefevre, also closed.

Though not closed, the Owl Pharmacy, located at 123 E. Lake, is among the businesses that have been negatively affected.

“There’s been quite a dip, because a lot of people left,” says Katrina Moomaw, manager of the pharmacy. “We had a lot of people that were making conscious efforts to come back into Medical Lake to do at least a little bit of shopping. Some people kept their prescriptions for as long as they could.”

Keeping up those efforts was difficult to sustain, however, and both the retail and pharmacy sides of the business suffered.

Moomaw says the fire and the lack of customers that followed were more impactful on the business than the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID, in the end, didn’t end up being horrible for us, but after the fire, that’s what really changed things,” Moomaw explains.

Despite the challenges, Moomaw says there have been signs of improvement.

“Things have been picking up," she says. "I think it’s because we have a lot of homes that have been built.”

Amana Nova, who opened The Vault Gallery Lake Med art studio in November, says she hoped there would be more business in the downtown area.

“We’re still struggling,” she says. “We definitely could use more people coming back in. I think people also just kind of hibernated after the fire. There’s trauma.”

Part of the reason Nova opened her art gallery and venue, at 106 S. Lefevre, was to give people in town something else to do.

Nova says raising awareness about the condition of the city’s downtown area would help bring in more business.

“People think the whole town burned down, so there’s no reason to come here,” Nova says, noting that she knows people in Spokane, which is just under 15 miles east of Medical Lake, who have made that assumption.

Nova also contends that new businesses opening in Medical Lake would help bring life to the community and help the existing businesses. She says there are too many vacant buildings in the area.

“It’s a bit of a ghost town,” she says.

The vacant buildings have also been on the city’s radar, Cooper says.

“We passed the vacant building ordinance so that we can know how many vacant buildings and lots we have,” she says. “There’s a cost if you leave it vacant. If you don’t sell or lease that property, every year that cost goes up.”

She says the ordinance requires building and property owners to register their vacant spaces and have standardized signage that advertises whether it’s for sale or for lease, who to contact, and what’s required to open a business in the space.

Weathers adds, “There's some minimum maintenance standards for the buildings too. So it's okay to have a vacant property, but it shouldn't look like a rundown property. That was an issue we heard from our existing business owners was that the town looks like it's closed.”

Cooper says the ordinance, which was passed about a year ago, has been well received so far.

“There's a purpose behind it,” Cooper says. “We're trying to revitalize our town, and you can't just leave a dilapidated property there for your benefit as a tax write-off or just ignore it because you don't care.”

The challenges facing local businesses don’t stop at the lack of people living in the area or the vacant buildings, however.

The timing of the fire also played a part, as businesses were still getting back on their feet after the pandemic, Johnson says.

“COVID hit and shut everything down, and then the fire came, and that was another type of shutdown for me,” Johnson explains. “Getting back, this is almost a harder lift than COVID.”

Johnson, who has also been heavily involved in fire relief work through her nonprofit Re*Imagine Medical Lake, had to close Farm Salvation in April, but reopened in September.

The lack of customers since the fire played a part in Johnson’s decision to temporarily close, as did the challenge of balancing both her store and the fire relief work.

Other economic challenges, like rising insurance and energy costs combined with the fallout of the fire, have made things more difficult, Johnson says.

“The costs have gone way up, and then combine that with the impact of the fire, and then COVID not even that long before that,” she says.

Johnson, who, with her husband Randy Johnson, owns the building that Farm Salvation and The Vault are located in, says she’s had to pivot her business model to stay afloat.

“I haven’t really been purchasing new inventory,” she says.

Not all businesses in Medical Lake have dealt with such struggles, however.

Johnson and her husband also own Johnson Homestead, which includes a farm-to-table meat shop located in the same building they own. Since opening a couple years ago, the shop has continued to grow, Randy Johnson says.

Regular weekly and monthly customers, as well as people who buy bulk amounts of beef, have helped with the growth, he says.

The meat products he sells are also more of a necessity for people, he explains.

“People can go without a candle or something, but you don’t really want to go without eating a good steak,” he says.

Bruchi’s CheeseSteaks & Subs, at 181 E. State Route 902, has also fared well since the fire, according to Kristi Stewart, the restaurant’s manager.

“With all the construction workers and painters and all that, the business has been coming here,” Stewart says.

The increase of workers in town to rebuild homes and other structures has countered the lack of people living in the area, she says.

Stewart says business has been picking up even more lately as people move back into their rebuilt homes.

The city of Medical Lake is continuing to explore different ways to help local businesses and revitalize the community.

Public investment has been made into the downtown area along Lefevre Street. The city is updating sidewalks, installing streetlamps, and adding flower baskets and trees.

New lodging options are also being considered, Cooper adds.

“We have no lodging, no hotels, and that’s something we want to change in the future,” she says.

Cooper mentions the possibility of building cabins or creating RV spots in the area, which would also generate some added tax revenue that could be invested into the community.

Cooper says she expects that the upcoming nicer weather and new or returning community events will help out some of the businesses that have been struggling.

“The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get,” she says.