Colorado Papers Feel Wildfire's Heat

By: Dave Astor Updated at 11:15 a.m. EST

With Colorado's huge Hayman wildfire closing to within 10 miles, the five-person staff of The Park County Republican & Fairplay Flume knows evacuation could be a wind shift away.

"We may have five minutes or a couple of hours warning," said Flume writer Betty Alspaugh, whose 3,500-circulation weekly -- located about 45 miles southwest of Denver -- serves the sparsely populated county where the fire began last Saturday. The largest blaze in Colorado history later spread to three other counties, and now encompasses more than 90,000 acres of parched land that has seen little snow or rain the past few months.

When a previous wildfire caused the Bailey-based Flume to evacuate its office this April, the staff had enough time to move their computers to the dining room of a staffer's home.

The inferno is about 35 miles southwest of Denver. Both Denver dailies report no bureau evacuations, no staff injuries, and no cases of smoke inhalation.

Denver Post Editor Gregory Moore did note that the health effects of smoke can show up later.

Post staff writer Michael Booth said some people in the field are carrying duffel bags with fire-resistant clothing they can put on when needed, and he said at least one writer and one photographer at the Post have taken training courses that allow them to enter more dangerous fire areas.

One problem for reporters and editors is that cell phones don't always work in the hilly terrain with few relay towers.

At the Denver Rocky Mountain News, "We have trucked papers to some of the evacuation centers for free to make sure people have information," said John Temple, editor, president, and publisher.

The Post has delivered papers to centers as well, said Moore.

He and Temple reported that their papers have had no major distribution problems and that single-copy sales have increased since the fire began.

Both said dozens of staffers at each paper are working on fire coverage.

"This is a huge story that is also totally unpredictable," Temple said, referring to the direction the fire might or might not take.

While emphasizing how hard the Post staff is working, Moore did also note briefly that "this has been quite a first week" for him. He started at the Post on Monday.

Closer to the fire, at the Flume, Alspaugh, the paper's one staff writer, drove a roundabout, fire-dodging, 90-mile route this Monday to Lake George, Colo. -- where the blaze began -- to take photos and gather information. On the way back, Alspaugh maneuvered her car through miles of smoke-filled roads.

"This fire is so big it's created its own weather system," she said. "Updrafts, downdrafts, wind shears, lightning, and a couple of tornadoes."

As she spoke on the phone, Alspaugh looked out the window of the Flume office. "It's just odd," she said. "Normally you can see 10,000-foot peaks. Now they're obscured by the smoke."

The paper is printed by parent company Arkansas Valley Publishing in Salida, Colo., currently well out of the fire's range. Alspaugh said the paper is publishing extra copies of its June 14 edition and doesn't expect problems with its mostly mail distribution.