Public Project
Wooldridge Fire
Around 2:30 p.m. there were reports of two small fires in Columbia. A reporter was sent, but not a photographer because they were very small fires that did very little to no damage. Then on the police and fire scanner a call went out about a bigger fire 25 miles West of Columbia in a town called Wooldridge. The town has roughly a population of 30 people.
I had never been in the newsroom when something like this happened. But the visuals team and I sprung into actions. First sending a call out to all photographers and seeing who would be able to hop in a car and head over. Equipped with cameras and camcorders eight visual journalist headed out to see what was going on in this small town.
As they arrived on the scene, they communicated back with those of us left in the newsroom about what they saw. I set up a google drive folder that they could dump their photos in from the field. That way we would have access to start publishing these photos along with the article that was being written.
As the night went on we received more and more photos depicting what was going on in Wooldridge. And as night turned to morning we finally got photos of the damage the fire did to the town and all those who call it home.
The next afternoon, a fellow photo editor Michelle Gutierrez, and I started going through all the photos that were taken during Saturday night, Sunday morning and afternoon. We wanted to make sure we showed the whole story. And we knew we needed to include not only the fire and the damage, but also show the faces of the people effected. This photo gallery is the result
Photography by Margo Wagner, Owen Ziliak, Clayton Steward, Maya Bell, Caroline McCone and Sam Koeppel
Check out the various stories the Columbia Missourian wrote about the fire and what comes next for the town:
Cooper County town ravaged by fire; no lives lost
Families displaced after Wooldridge fire burns thousands of acres
'Don't know where to really start': Wooldridge begins to recover after devastating fire
When the ash settles: The Wooldridge fire aftermath
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