
This photo provided by Texas Parks and Wildlife shows a fire burning in Bastrop State Park in Bastrop, Texas. More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed in at least 57 wildfires across rain-starved Texas, most of them in one devastating blaze near Austin that is still raging out of control, officials said Tuesday.
On Wednesday, ACM Newsroom suggests our editors and reporters at our Texas newspapers contact their local fire departments to see if they have any firefighters assisting with the wildfires raging in Austin, Texas, Tuesday.
This would be a great way to localize this now national story.
If your town doesn’t have a firefighter or two battling the blazes, another way to localize this story is interviewing your fire chiefs about the potential wildfire dangers in our community, and how people can protect their property from falling victim to such a tragedy.
Even if this story has been done prior to this event near Austin, a reminder still works in this case because of the impact these fires will have on the state. If not a full story or sidebar, consider a breakout box with informational bulletpoints.
Remember, providing a local feature or sidebar to a state or national story is a great way to improve readership!
For a link to the national story on the Texas wildfires, click this link:
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-fires-kill-4-destroy-more-1-000-230345872.html