Brea Jones

There is something strange about blowing away records and performing your best when others are in peril. On Tuesday, some of the worst fires Stockton has ever seen raged through a neighborhood. Smoke poured onto the highway and roads were blocked off. As firefighters did their jobs, I did mine.

I redesigned the top element of Recordnet.com to house all of the stories, video and audio from the scene and put all of our efforts on the fire. I built photo galleries, jotted down notes from reporters at the scene and worked with newsroom staff to build something thousands of people came to see and participate in. Thirty families were displaced and we set a site traffic record with 391,000 page views in one day.

It’s a sad irony, but newspapers really do show their value in times of devestation.

The content is no longer on the front page, but you can find it on a landing page:  

• VIDEO: Four-alarm fire burns through Quail Lakes
• VIDEO: Residents use garden hoses to fight fire
• AUDIO: Fire press conference at Quail Lakes Baptist
• AUDIO: Q&A from press conference
• AUDIO: CHP spokesman Adrian Quintero
• AUDIO: Stockton police spokesman Officer Pete Smith
• PHOTOS: View Record photos
• PHOTOS: View user photos from the fire
• MAP: See an interactive map of the fire area
• VIDEO: View aerial footage of the fires, courtesy KCRA