Sergio Olmos, Henry Fountain and Simon Romero, The New York Times
Published: 23 Jul 2021 11:07 AM BdST
Updated: 23 Jul 2021 11:07 AM BdST Smoke from the Bootleg Fire hangs in the horizon outside Lakeview, Ore on Wednesday, July 21, 2021. The New York Times
Smoke smeared the sky gray. A tractor-style logging machine sat abandoned and charred in a field. Hundreds of firefighters raced across miles and miles of forest land, often outnumbering the populations of the small towns that speckle southern Oregon. );
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A lightning strike on a brittle-dry Oregon mountain slope set off a blaze that has grown larger than the city of Los Angeles, revealing the challenges of curbing small blazes that can explode into colossal wildfires.
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Firefighters from all over the country will respond to wildfires like the Bootleg Fire.
KING 5 s sister station, KGW in Portland, spoke with the Oregon Department of Forestry about the resources being called in to help fight the Bootleg Fire. We ve got [crews from] Arizona, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alaska, Oklahoma, Georgia, Michigan, New York, said Marcus Kauffman, spokesman for the Department s Incident Management Team 1. We ve got people coming from all over.
Chavez said responding to fires like the Bootleg in other states is nothing new. It s just what you kind of accept as part of your responsibility and it s an honor, said Chavez.