Correction: Photo Used In Santa Rosa Wildfire Story Erroneously Represented By Fire Department

May 7, 2020

NorthEscambia.com has removed a photo from our story about the Santa Rosa wildfire, and we are correcting the origin and context of the photo.

The photo (above) was erroneously released Wednesday night on Facebook by the Baker Fire District in a collection of photos that included graphics related to the Santa Rosa County fire such as Santa Rosa County evacuation maps, fire maps and a Florida Forest Service helicopter. It was clearly represented by the Baker Fire District as being  their firefighters at the Santa Rosa fire. Escambia Fire Rescue was misled and posted the photo Wednesday nigh labeled as the Baker Fire District working the Five Mile Swamp Fire in Santa Rosa County.

In turn, NorthEscambia.com and other media outlets published what we believed to be a public domain photo released by a government agency. We later learned Thursday, thanks to an alert reader, the photo was taken in June 2007 by the Reno Gazette Journal at the Angora Fire in South Lake Tahoe, California.

We apologize for the erroneous information released by the Baker Fire District.

Comments

2 Responses to “Correction: Photo Used In Santa Rosa Wildfire Story Erroneously Represented By Fire Department”

  1. judy on May 8th, 2020 10:08 am

    Good job at being a responsible journalist! I notice none of the other media has corrected the same mistake!

  2. just saying on May 7th, 2020 3:12 pm

    Example – responsible journalism.

    Error (not of your making) – correct it

    good job

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News