Piercing The Smoke: Methow Valley News Keeps Reporting Despite Wildfires

When residents of the Methow Valley want updates on the fires in their area, many of them have turned to the Facebook page of the local paper, the Methow Valley News.

The small staff there has worked nearly round the clock to post evacuation notices, updates from readers, calls for donations from local aid agencies and, very sadly, photos of the procession carrying the bodies of three fallen firefighters. But those who produce the news are also living it.

Don Nelson is the editor of the Methow Valley News. He also knew one of the three firefighters who were killed in the Twisp fire, Tom Zbyszewski, who Nelson remembers as "Tommy Z."

"It's just an emotional gut punch for the whole community," Nelson told KUOW's Kim Malcolm "In a small community like this, it's intimate, it's emotional, it's personal, and at the same time we need to find a way to park that while we're doing our jobs. This might be the worst part of our job, but it's the time when we should be doing our best work for the community."

How long will he and his reporters be able to keep delivering the news? Nelson said they never quit during the Carlton Complex fires last year, despite the loss of power and the danger.

"We did not stop publishing," he said. "We got a borrowed generator and some cell phones and we produced a newspaper. It never occurred to us that we would not."

That hard work paid off when staffers Ann McCreary and Marcy Stamper won a national journalism award for excellence in breaking news. Both are covering this fire now.

So what would it take to make Nelson flee the valley?

"I would have to feel like I was in real peril and that it would be foolish, foolhardy, ridiculously heroic to stick around in the face of real danger," Nelson said. "I am not quite sure that you know that moment until it's upon you."