This article reports on a content analysis of newspaper coverage of a wildfire on the Hanford nuclear site in the summer of 2000. The risk and mass communication literatures suggest thatnewspaper coverage of such fires would frame the event in dread terms, with some variation in the framing depending on the community diversity of the home market. We found that newspapers did vary in their framing of the fire, and that vigilance and confidence were more common framings of the fire. Our tentative explanation is that key risk communicators and reporters adhered to their professional ethics and relied on one another to develop a frame for Hanford hazards and risks.