• Brenda Masengill, Sun-News city editor. She was the only employee in the building when she heard insistent knocking at the employee door on the west side of the newspaper.

"There was a gentleman telling me the building was on fire and he'd called 911," she said. Turning back into the building, she smelled smoke for the first time. "I thanked him, went back to my desk, called reporters and photographers, notified Silver City, our sister newspaper, unlocked the doors and firemen entered the building (soon after). They said, 'Ma'am, you need to leave this building.'"

• • •

• Robin Zielinski, one of two Sun-News photographers covering the event. She was at home preparing to start her shift.

"Brenda called me and I thought she was just calling me to tell me about a shoot today, but she said, 'Robin the building is on fire. I need you to come down here and take pictures.' I then saw the smoke from my house. And right when I got there, they were blocking off the road, because fire trucks needed to attach to the hydrants. The adrenaline was definitely going when the flames were at their highest. I've shot fires before, so I wasn't nervous or anything like that, but it was definitely unusual to be outside of our building with all our staff, watching it burn."

• • •

• Jason Smith, a firefighter with the Las Cruces Fire Department, had just finished a staff meeting when he received the call. He was responsible

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for overseeing three crews at the scene.

"I just wanted to size up the building and see how big it was and where we had smoke coming from. I wanted to make good decisions to make sure we had a point of entry to stop the fire before it go into the Sun-News. We went around the back side of the structure and conditions weren't too bad initially and we were able to hit the fire we encountered early on. Then we went into a spot where there was zero visibility, there was smoke from the floor to the roof. And we recognized that conditions had changed. We knew something was about to occur and we relayed the changes to the fire chief and he made the appropriate decision to draw everyone out of there and to continue to fight the fire from the exterior. And that was just before the roof collapsed."

• • •

• Jason Gibbs, Sun-News online editor, who reported to the fire from home and helped coordinated newsroom coverage by setting up a mobile office in a parking lot.

"I could not be more proud of my colleagues for their coverage while our house was burning, or Brenda, who defied orders to evacuate long enough to call human resources, photographers and a reporter before leaving the desk. That, people, is a dedicated journalist."

• • •

• Joe Meier, bystander and New Mexico State University creative media student. Meier was on his way to shoot a documentary.

"I live downtown, so they were redirecting traffic on the street I lived on and I was caught up in the flow of traffic and I noticed that the Sun-News was on fire. So I pulled down an alleyway and luckily had my camera and started filming it. I thought 'oh my God, all the newspapers that are in there ... it's just going to be so bad, no one's going to get the news! I was concerned, but luckily now that I know more about it, the Sun-News itself wasn't really on fire. I couldn't believe how much smoke there was. I think it was kind of rare that there's a fire that big in Las Cruces. I thought the fire department was on it. They did a good job. Kudos to them and the police department for directing traffic. Gosh, it could have been really bad."

• • •

• Russ Smith, Happy Dogs vendor

"I came to work Monday and recognized that people in your office were trying to do the best they could to regroup. And there was a lot of energy and activity and I wanted to do my part to keep that energy going. At that point I prepared two bags of hot dogs to present over there and I'm happy to help in anyway I can.

"Just simply neighbor helping neighbor. My hot dog stand is virtually a block away so it's easy to be called a neighbor.