diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 5887d00b698..21addcc3639 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -317,6 +317,9 @@ Release 2.7.4 - UNRELEASED
 
     HDFS-11377. Balancer hung due to no available mover threads. (yunjiong zhao)
 
+    HDFS-6291. FSImage may be left unclosed in BootstrapStandby#doRun()
+    (Sanghyun Yun via vinayakumarb)
+
 Release 2.7.3 - 2016-08-25
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/BootstrapStandby.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/BootstrapStandby.java
index 2d83cbae04a..93ddd47388f 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/BootstrapStandby.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/ha/BootstrapStandby.java
@@ -322,8 +322,9 @@ public class BootstrapStandby implements Tool, Configurable {
       // Write seen_txid to the formatted image directories.
       storage.writeTransactionIdFileToStorage(imageTxId, NameNodeDirType.IMAGE);
     } catch (IOException ioe) {
-      image.close();
       throw ioe;
+    } finally {
+      image.close();
     }
     return 0;
   }