The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Air, Land, and Water blog recently featured a thoughtful narrative about events surrounding the recent Almeda Fire in the Bear Creek Valley in Southern Oregon. The post included updates on cleanup efforts by DEQ and the interagency Debris Management Task Force, but also individual anecdotes about local community members’ experience, vivid photos and video of the fire’s aftermath, and reflections of DEQ officials on the personal toll of the fire.
DEQ’s weekly blog, which aims to offer “stories of environmental protection in Oregon,” is an excellent example of the power of storytelling as a communications tool for environmental agencies. Other recent entries touch on a DEQ breakthrough in using satellite imagery to detect Harmful Algal Blooms, and a brownfields success story in Astoria, Oregon that yielded a park known as “The Garden of Surging Waves.”
