Photo of trees in Avondale Estates. Source: Avondaleestates.org

There was a fire in Avondale Estates on April 12 that claimed the lives of two people.

It was a horrific event, one that has left this close-knit community in mourning. Mayor Ed Rieker told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that it was the worst tragedy to strike the community in “at least two generations.”

Decaturish.com has published several articles about the fire. The articles have focused on the event itself, the outpouring of community support for the Willadsen family and the potential causes of the fire.

That last subject has been difficult for some people in the community. Behind the scenes, we’ve received pushback for our coverage.

On April 23 a reader posted a comment that summed up the general sentiment of people who have taken issue with it.

“You are making mess of this,” the commenter said. “Please stop.”

As a reporter and editor I take full ownership of what we do. If we get something wrong, we fix it. If we make a misstep in our reporting of a story, we try to tread more carefully in the future. The pushback comes from a place of pain. I completely understand that. I’ve tried to report the story in a way that respects the parties involved.

But I disagree that we should simply stop covering this. The story involves a matter of public safety. The questions we ask are the ones a lot of you probably asked when you heard about it.

Why did this happen? What could be done to prevent it in the future?

Our intent here is to inform readers in a way that prioritizes the privacy of the family while reporting information of general interest.

We will continue to follow this story wherever it leads while taking great care to remember that behind those public records there are real people who lost their lives. They are loved and they are missed, and we won’t ever forget that.

Finding out how this tragedy happened matters. The only way to find out is to ask questions.

We feel that is our role and responsibility as a news website.