Reporters Martha Bellisle and Matthew Brown combined their expertise on changes to federal land agencies since U.S President Donald Trump retook office with their deep knowledge of the west and wildfires to deliver an accountability story examining how the new Wildland Fire Agency was promoting a widely discredited policy. The pair had been reporting out the story when three wildland firefighters died last week.
Through aggressive reporting and beat expertise, they quickly pivoted the story’s focus to explain the impact of the administration’s shift to an old, discredited firefighting policy, which says all fires must be extinguished in the first 24 hours – a policy many experts believed was dangerous for firefighters, communities and public lands.
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