Photos taken by a firefighter show a scorched landscape filled with smoke in parts of a Washington town destroyed by wildfires

The Gray Fire has destroyed hundreds of homes in Medical Lake, Washington.Courtesy of Colby Bepple.

• The Gray Fire was first sparked on August 18 in Medical Lake, Washington, a town of 5,000 in Spokane County.
• The fire has burned through more than 10,000 acres so far and is 58% contained as of August 25.

On August 18, a small fire started near a small town in Eastern Washington. And then, as winds picked up across the region, the nearly 5,000 residents of Medical Lake, Washington received a Level 3 Evacuation Order.

That means: "Go now."

The Gray Fire has now killed one person and destroyed at least 326 structures, a public information officer from Washington's Northwest Incident Management Team Seven told Insider.

Flames have ripped through more than 10,000 acres of land in Medical Lake and the surrounding region in Spokane County, according to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources Northeast Division. And with thousands of people displaced due to evacuation orders or destroyed homes, the Gray Fire devastated the community.

As the flames left the town and moved elsewhere, Colby Bepple — a firefighter with nearby Grant County — went into Medical Lake on Sunday on his own to assist those who needed it. He documented his visit by photographing the devastation caused by the flames.