Covering the Conflagration: Reporting from the Wildfire Frontiers
Wildfires are becoming not only annual events but also unmistakable signs of the broader climate emergency—scorching forests, forcing evacuations, disrupting ecosystems, and crossing borders. Covering the Conflagration brings together journalists who report directly from these frontlines, capturing both the immediate dangers and the longer-term consequences of fire.
Jesse Winter, Visual Journalist and recipient of the 2024 CJF Edward Burtynsky Award for Climate Photojournalism; Nancy MacDonald, National Reporter for The Globe and Mail and Colleen Hagerty of the Solutions Journalism Network’s My World’s on Fire project will discuss what it takes to cover these events. From documenting communities forced to flee, to tracking smoke and fire across provinces and borders, to reporting on the ecological and social ripple effects of increasingly intense fire seasons, the panel will explore the practical, ethical, and emotional dimensions of wildfire journalism.
Through stories from the field, investigative reporting, and visual storytelling, this discussion will reveal how journalists bear witness to disasters that are immediate, borderless, and deeply intertwined with the unfolding climate crisis.