The Sierra Vista Herald wins Inland Leadership Award

The Sierra Vista Herald will be honored Oct. 17 in Chicago with the Inland Press Association’s 2011 Community Leadership Award for its excellence in coverage of this summer’s Monument Fire disaster.

The fire, which took place in June, consumed more than 30,000 acres, resulted in the displacement of thousands of residents and resulted in the loss of around 55 homes and businesses.

The leadership award recognizes the initiative and achievements of newspapers working through the combined resources of news coverage, editorial support and staff involvement to improve the community. Entries were to show how the local newspaper is effectively involved in the life of its community.

The entries were judged by members of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

In their comments, the judges stated: “The once-in-a-century calamity was covered in print and electronically with SMS updates to readers. There’s no better public service than keeping a community safe in a disaster – telling readers about bridge and road closings and warning them away from dangerous areas.

“The Sierra Vista Herald was a gathering place for information, comfort and advice. The Herald provided extraordinary coverage and the leadership that’s needed when tragedy overtakes a community.”

During the fire, the Herald newsroom and other staff members pulled together to produce up to the minute updates online as well as writing thousands of inches of copy and publishing hundreds of photos of the disaster. It also became the most trusted source of information as other social media outlets were less than diligent in making sure the information being disseminated was factual.

Among the many emailed comments the newspaper received, readers said the effort by the staff gave “the most complete coverage”, “the information and links are exactly what I need”, “the paper did a stupendous job in covering the fire,” and “the maps that you have put out showing the burn area and evacuation zones have been extremely helpful.”

Publisher Phil Vega said he was happy to see that all the hard work by the Herald team was being recognized on the national level. “We’re pleased to receive this award. And even more pleased that our staff rose to the occasion to produce and package news reports every day of the fire that our readers looked for and needed. My gratitude and thanks to all of them.”

The Monument Fire started south of Sierra Vista near the Coronado Memorial close to the Mexican border and quickly turned into a disaster for the rural area south of town as high winds whipped the blaze from canyon to canyon in the Huachuca Mountains.

The fire, fanned for three days by up to 50 mph wind gusts, doubled in size in just one day.

As the fire raged in the sparsely populated mountains, it eventually rolled down the slopes and jumped a major highway that connects Sierra Vista to the Hereford and Bisbee communities.

Employees of the Herald scrambled to ramp up coverage that included nearly 24/7 website updates, extra pages of color photography in the newspaper and a plentiful helping of local stories as crews from around the nation arrived to help fight the blaze.

At its height there were 1,176 people assigned to fight the fire, including 26 crews, 86 engines, 7 helicopters, 1 single-engine air tanker, 2 heavy air tankers, and 2 dozers.

Employees and their friends were impacted by the fire as housing areas were put under mandatory evacuation. Seven days after the blaze, at least one employee had not gone home. Earlier in the disaster another employee went home, but to a house with no electricity.

Luckily, no loss of life occurred and the fire was contained at the end of June.

The newspaper’s single copy sales increased by about 25 percent at the height of the fire and its web site traffic went up nearly ten fold above normal.

The site saw four consecutive days of 100,000-plus page views including a record day of 168,000-plus page views and 51,000 visits as the fire hit the more populated areas just south of town. People from around the world were logging time on the site to follow the coverage at the height of the fire.