Where should reporters draw the line in covering wildfires?

Just days after fire sparked in Northern California’s Klamath National Forest in late July, search and rescue workers arrived to sift through piles of ash where homes once stood. The fire had exploded with disconcerting speed to become the state’s largest of the year at that point, killing two people and scorching more than 100 buildings in the rural region.

Investigators began searching properties for human remains. But, in an unusual turn of events, they had help. An ABC news crew had transported local resident Sherri Marchetti-Perrault to the wreckage and rolled the cameras as she searched for her missing uncle.

What happened next drew widespread condemnation: ABC national correspondent Matt Gutman reported from the site that Ms. Marchetti-Perrault had found the body of her uncle. Mr. Gutman identified the victim as John Cogan long before authorities officially did so. The fire’s death toll would later rise to four when investigators separately found the remains of former fire lookout volunteer Kathy Shoopman.

Local residents accused Mr. Gutman on social media of exploiting Ms. Marchetti-Perrault and breaking state law. And Kent Porter, a veteran California wildfire photojournalist with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, even said on Twitter that the ABC crew had “created their own news” by driving her to the site, which was only open to first responders and journalists.

The criticism amplified when local Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue of Siskiyou County announced criminal investigations into ABC and four other media outlets he accused of tampering with crime scenes and trespassing on private property in the burn scar of what became known as the McKinney Fire. 

“Moving forward, we hope the media will be more conscientious of the law and respect the dignity of fire victims and their families,” Mr. LaRue said on Facebook.

The debacle ignited a fresh debate about media ethics in coverage of California wildfires. Unlike many states in the Western United States, where wildfires have become increasingly destructive, reporters in California have wide latitude to enter cordoned-off burn zones before other members of the public, allowing journalists to witness the natural disasters firsthand. Those privileges have inspired a similar access law that goes into effect in Oregon early next year. But those privileges also carry considerable responsibility, and sometimes the presence of journalists has caused tensions with local residents and interfered with first responders. 

All five outlets named by Mr. LaRue, including ABC and the Los Angeles Times, defended their coverage as lawful and ethical. David Loy, legal director for the California-based First Amendment Coalition, which supports journalists, tells the Monitor he doubts Mr. LaRue’s investigations will result in any charges, but he says Mr. LaRue has succeeded in making a dangerous job even more dangerous by whipping up resentment for journalists.

Repeated requests for comment to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office were not returned. 

Reporters as “partners”

The McKinney Fire had scorched more than 50,000 acres just three days after ignition on July 29. Investigators haven’t yet determined what sparked the fire. But extreme heat, climate-fueled drought, and wind enabled its rapid spread, according to the U.S. Forest Service. As of Aug. 26, the fire was 99% contained after burning about 60,000 acres.

The blaze quickly scorched small communities dotting state Route 96. On Aug. 2, firefighters also had to contend with flash flooding that threatened operations and sent burned soil and debris into the Klamath River, likely killing thousands of fish, according to local tribal ecologists.

From Redding, about 90 miles away, Silas Lyons watched the fire progress. The executive editor for a slew of newspapers in the Gannett network, Mr. Lyons decided to dispatch three trained reporters, including a photojournalist who traveled hours from Eugene, Oregon.

The team delivered “heartbreaking” dispatches of leveled community centers and homes in the fire’s hardest-hit regions for Redding’s Record Searchlight, Mr. Lyons says, while the newspaper published authorities’ evacuation orders online. That’s information locals are “desperate to know,” he says. All of the newspaper’s McKinney Fire coverage was free to readers.

“Journalists are the eyes and ears for people who can’t get out there properly,” he adds. “They can go where other people obviously can’t.”

That work is possible thanks to an exception in California’s penal code that specifically carves out privileges for journalists to cross fire lines. Reporters in other Western states have coveted that access. Across the border in Oregon, officials have typically restricted media access to wildfires, says Nathan Howard, a photojournalist who freelances for The Associated Press and Getty Images and has long covered blazes in the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. Howard says authorities mostly prevented him from covering the “massive” Bootleg Fire in the southern part of the state last year, which burned about 413,000 acres over more than a month. At its peak, the fire consumed 1,000 acres per hour. He says he had to rely on guided tours of already-burned areas, in which agency spokespersons provided a “highly sanitized version of the fire.”

In an effort to avoid experiences like that, Rachel Alexander, a member of the Greater Oregon Society of Professional Journalists and managing editor at the Salem Reporter, helped advocate for a new law, signed by Gov. Kate Brown in March, that will give journalists more access to fire zones beginning in January. Ms. Alexander says she consistently hears that, without that access, journalists throughout the state feel they can’t “really tell the public what is happening in fires.” 

By contrast, authorities in California generally share Mr. Lyons’ view, including those at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. Isaac Sanchez, a Cal Fire battalion chief based in Sacramento, calls reporters “partners” in the agency’s education efforts. Cal Fire runs a popular training program where journalists learn basic factors influencing fire behavior and strategies to keep themselves safe – and avoid interfering with first responders and firefighters, Mr. Sanchez says. Gannett also provides similar training to all reporters in the West, according to Mr. Lyons.

“This is not something to be taken lightly by any stretch of the imagination,” Mr. Sanchez says.

Battle lines between residents and reporters

No journalists have died while covering wildfires in California. But, on occasion, local residents in burn zones can themselves be a source of danger to reporters. It’s common for residents to ignore evacuation orders and stay home to protect their property and animals, according to Mr. Lyons. And those residents sometimes view journalists – the only other civilians in the evacuation zone – with suspicion.

Mr. LaRue, the sheriff, posted his first criticism on Aug. 2, when he accused reporters of “unlawful abuse of press privileges.” Originally, Mr. LaRue didn’t name a reporter or outlet with his claims.

But social media users quickly connected his allegations with ABC’s report, since, at the beginning of the segment, Mr. Gutman says he traveled to the burn site with Ms. Marchetti-Perrault, who is shown riding in the backseat of a news van with the reporter.

Mr. LaRue’s posts received thousands of likes and hundreds of comments overwhelmingly supporting the sheriff. One commenter, Rose Elizabeth Leigh, said reporters were only interested in “getting the dead body shot.”

“This has to be the grossest demonstration of contempt by the liberal media that they would go into a rural community with such reprehensible disrespect and disregard,” Ms. Leigh said. Another commenter accused Mr. Gutman of seeking “15 minutes of fame.”

Some journalists also criticized the media report. Mr. Porter, the photojournalist with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, called ABC’s behavior “very unethical and against California state law.” Noah Berger, a photojournalist who covered the McKinney Fire for The Associated Press, said it was a “bad move.”

ABC, through its spokesman Van Scott Jr., denies any wrongdoing. In an emailed statement to the Monitor, Mr. Scott says the network’s news crew had received permission from authorities and residents to visit property in the burn scar, adding that once the body was discovered, “our team notified law enforcement.”

Ms. Marchetti-Perrault, meanwhile, apologized to authorities in a local news report.

Mr. Howard, the photojournalist covering Oregon wildfires, says he was “shocked” by the sheriff’s attacks, which struck a nerve.

“I saw that and I thought, ‘You’re putting a target on people’s backs,’” he says.

While covering devastating fires near Portland in 2020, Mr. Howard says a local resident pointed a rifle at him and accused him of looting burned homes.

That’s a risk for reporters entering cordoned-off areas where misinformation can flourish, Mr. Howard says. While covering that fire and others, he sometimes heard residents accuse fire authorities of setting blazes themselves or refusing to battle a megafire. In the instance when he was accused of looting, Mr. Howard says some residents were convinced leftist activists in Portland had set the fires, a baseless accusation. 

Mr. Lyons says his reporters covering other fires have also had “tense conversations” with local residents, but no violence has erupted.

Mr. LaRue didn’t condemn any of the newspapers overseen by Mr. Lyons. When asked about the sheriff’s investigations, Mr. Lyons cautions that he isn’t familiar with the conduct of other news crews in the McKinney Fire. Still, he says the sheriff’s comments were counterproductive and “unnecessarily hostile.”

The answer, according to Mr. Lyons: ensuring journalists who cross the fire line are trained to cover wildfires safely and legally – “and not because a sheriff tried to shame them” into training.