After burning for more than a month, the Bootleg Fire, Oregon’s largest of the year, is finally 100% contained. It leaves behind a charred landscape larger than Los Angeles and nearly five times the size of Portland. Now, the hard work of assessing the damage and planning for recovery begins. Perhaps no one has a greater stake in, and a stronger connection to, this land than the members of the Klamath Tribes. Underscore.news accompanied tribal leaders as they surveyed the damage, many of them for the first time since the blaze erupted in early July.
Photos by Leah Nash/Underscore.news
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Display photo: Taylor R. Tupper, the Klamath Tribes’ public information manager, takes photos of the Bootleg Fire near Spodue Mountain. This was the first time many of the Tribes’ leaders had seen the devastation firsthand. “I grew up in that area. I have memories of hunting with friends, spending time there with my dad and my brother — who have both now passed,” Gentry said. “I’m grieving.”
Leah is an editorial and commercial photographer based in Portland, Oregon specializing in travel, portrait, lifestyle, and documentary photography with an authentic and atmospheric bent. For Leah, photography has always been about the stories; the lives she gets to inhabit, document, and share. Clients include National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Her work can be viewed at: www.LeahNash.com