Chico paper rises to the occasion to cover the Camp Fire

The Camp Fire as seen from the roof of the Chico Enterprise-Record. (Photo by David Little)

As the Camp Fire rages on in northern California, the staff of the Chico Enterprise-Record has risen to the occasion to provide local coverage. Chico is a city of 90,000 just a few miles away from Paradise, the small town that was destroyed by the fast-moving fire, now the deadliest in state history.

The paper has a staff of 10, with four part-timers helping, but journalists from other Digital First Media Group papers in the San Francisco Bay area have been sent to pitch in, Benjamin Oreskes reports for the Los Angeles Times. The Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Redding Record-Searchlight sent them pizzas too.

Editor David Little, a Chico native who has run the Enterprise-Record and several others nearby for almost 20 years, told Oreskes the fire has been like nothing he's ever experienced. That means something coming from Little, also the editor of the Oroville Mercury-Register, which covered the 2017 dam spillway failure that led to 180,000 people being evacuated.

The fire has been hard on the staff, but Little told Oreskes they've been nothing but professional in reporting the story with limited resources and figuring out logistical challenges like delivery: "Everyone has been dealing with evacuations, sheltering family and friends, and yet they’re down here working hard all the time. That’s why people are doing this, because they know people depend on it. It gives you hope that people appreciate newspapers in a time like this."