By ADINA YOUNG and JODI WESTRICK
Observer Staff
Oct. 25, 2007

Photos By Caitlin Ward
Slideshow By Shaheryar Mirza

NEWS COLUMN

After a week of devastating wildfires in southern California burning through 695 sq. miles and 1,609 homes with damage estimated by the California Department of Insurance at more than $1 billion, things are looking up, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Santa Ana winds that made the fires difficult to extinguish and now spans from Los Angeles County to San Diego County and most of these fires are almost contained.
The L.A. Times, which has offices in many of the counties affected by the fires, offers extensive front-page coverage of the fires for their readers, including a photo gallery, photos from local residents, video and a number of maps.

Two of the maps are more detail oriented. The interactive map allows readers to click on the location of their choice to find out more information about the fire, if it is contained and what it destroyed.

The other map also shows information about the fires but in a ready-to-view format labeling the cities and towns by number with the information below the map.

CNN offers a link top of the main page that has an entire Web site dedicated to the fires in the “Hot Topics” section, where the stories are divided by evacuation, recovery and environment.

Once you get to the page, there is also a plethora of photos and a video, as well as emergency contact information, and how regular citizens can help.

CNN offers an even greater interactive map than L.A. Times, because it not only has detailed “clickable” information, but there are photos accompanying the information.

The main page of the Washington Post offers a photo gallery, video, recent coverage and a link that says “complete coverage” where you can find a list of all the coverage done by the Post, discussions from FEMA and NOAA, resources, and an interactive map of the area.

The map, while very detailed in the labeling of cities and location of the fires, does not offer as much information as the interactive CNN or the L.A. Times maps.

BLOGGERS COLUMN

Personal accounts, criticism of media coverage and images of the disastrous fires raging across Southern California have overtaken blog coverage this past week.

For Cynthia Ware, a blogger at Digital Sanctuary, the fires have kept her from updating her blog as evidenced in her last entry posted on Oct. 23.

For those with access to a computer, the official Google blog is continuously updating maps of the fires on its site. Users are able to see which areas are evacuated, where help can be found and which areas are safe for return.

According to some bloggers in the San Diego area, the media coverage of the fires has been less than stellar. Tricia Wang at Hi Tricia! has an interesting post comparing the media’s coverage of evacuees post-Hurricane Katrina and evacuees post-Southern California fires. Cake or Death criticizes the fact that Los Angeles-based media outlets have little focus on the San Diego fires, creating a problem for those located in between the two cities who only receive LA news stations, but are closer to the San Diego fires in an Oct. 24 post.

Blogs were buzzing after Fox News reported on Oct. 24 that al-Qaida might be behind the California wildfires, after learning that a 2003 FBI memo indicated al-Qaida was considering setting fires to Western states as a form of terrorism. Think Progress offered this analysis and a video of the Fox News report.

Newspapers have also been turning their online blog coverage to the California wildfires.

The L.A. Times’ breaking news blog has been dedicated to coverage of the fires.

The New York Times’ blog, The Lede, has offered its own comprehensive coverage of the fires. The blog includes links to interactive maps, the latest articles from the Times and coverage related to wildfires in general.