As wildfires swept through Los Angeles in January 2025, New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier noticed something strange – firefighters were working bare-faced for days on end, while residents were told to wear masks or stay indoors to protect themselves from dangerous air pollutants.
In over 400 interviews, public records requests to eight agencies, an analysis of thousands of pages of individual medical and service records, and the creation of a database tracking every national crew deployment over the past two decades, Dreier discovered the dramatic and lasting consequences that firefighters were facing from fighting wildfires without protection, and that the Forest Service had understood the dangers of smoke for decades, but downplayed the risk.
As a result of the reporting, Congress passed a bipartisan law, signed in December 2025, that requires the government to pay $450,000 to wildland firefighters who become disabled or die from smoke-related cancers. Five additional bills prompted by this reporting are still pending at the federal level, and it has also spurred state-level spending and regulation in California, as well as new OSHA and Forest Service protections for wildland firefighters, including the reversal of the Forest Service’s decades-long ban on masks.
Sacrifice Zones: Mapping Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution
In an unprecedented data analysis and interactive map, ProPublica revealed more than 1,000 hot spots of toxic industrial air pollution that the EPA has allowed to spread across America, elevating the cancer risk of more than a fifth of the nation’s population, including 256,000 people exposed to threat levels the agency deems unacceptably high. The series captured how the EPA, through weak policies and calculated choices, created “sacrifice zones” where overlooked communities next door to toxic manufacturing plants bear disproportionate health costs so that consumers can enjoy the products made there. The interactive map at the heart of this reporting provides residents – for the first time – with a way to see their own estimated risk from air pollution. As a result of this reporting the EPA committed to looking into hot spots, and pledged new cumulative risk guidelines and a “more robust” analysis of air pollution. More than 76 local news outlets reported on the findings from their area, expanding awareness of local air pollution risks and prompting local activism.
This reporting was done by ProPublica, with collaboration from the Texas Tribune and Mountain State Spotlight.
Poisoned
Hillsborough County had the highest number of adult lead poisonings in all of Florida. Reporters from the Tampa Bay Times set out to discover why. They interviewed more than 100 current and former employees at a local battery recycling plant suspected to be the cause. Johnson, Woolington and Murray gathered over 100,000 pages of documents and hundreds of photos and videos from employees that showed the perilous conditions inside the factory. They even became certified lead inspectors as they exposed how the factory had contaminated the surrounding community. After the initial parts of the series ran, OSHA sent inspectors into the plant for the first time in five years, confirmed the Times’ reporting, and issued one of the steepest fines in recent Florida history. Local children were screened for lead, and county regulators increased monitoring and oversight of the company, which also saw its credit rating downgraded and was driven to improve its safety systems. The Times’ project was supported by PBS FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative, which provided partial funding and consultation.
