Bootleg Fire Recovery: One Year Later

United States

A year ago, the Friends of the Klamath County Library heard from Bill Ganong, who was dealing with the effects of the devastating Bootleg Fire on his family’s ranch. The Friends are checking in with Ganong to see how recovery efforts are going in a presentation on Wednesday, January 18th at 2 pm at the downtown Klamath County Library.

The Bootleg Fire – which torched more than 400,000 acres before being fully contained in August 2021 – was the second-largest wildfire in the United States that year and the third-largest in Oregon since 1900.

Bill Ganong will discuss how his family’s holistic, sustainable approach to forest management ended up reducing the damage that the property suffered in the Bootleg Fire, and how the land as recovered since then. The Ganongs apply principles set forth by the American Tree Farm System, a network of family forest owners who aim to balance the economic needs of the wood and paper industry with stewardship of the water, wildlife and soil quality on their properties.

The presentation will be followed by a brief business meeting of the Friends.

The presentation is free to the public, presented both in-person at the downtown library and streamed online via Zoom. If you’d like to watch the presentation from your computer, email the Friends at folklamath@gmail.com for the link to the stream.

For more about how you can become a Friend of the Klamath County Library, visit klamathlibrary.org/friends.

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