Our job as journalists is to keep you informed about what is taking place in your community. In the year-plus that I’ve been working exclusively online, I’ve seen how we can expand what we do so we can respond almost immediately to what you want to know about.

The wildfire that burned along the border of Napa  and Solano counties last weekend is a great example of how we as journalists, and you as readers, can combine online to get out as much relevant information as possible, and do it as rapidly as possible.

The fire broke out near Wild Horse Valley sometime near 4 p.m. last Saturday. By 9 p.m. we had a few updates online, adding more until a little before 2 a.m. Sunday.

Here is where the readers kicked in and helped direct our fire coverage.

In the mid-morning hours Sunday, a number of readers posted comments to the running fire update blog, asking where the fire was burning in the canyon, what roads were blocked, and where, if any, homes were threatened.

We took these posted questions, gathered the answers as fast as we could, and put the word out via the Web site to the community.

In a few instances, people posted comments that they learned of voluntary evacuation orders by reading the blog even before fire crews made it on to their street to pass along the same information.

This is exactly how a local news Web site can benefit a community, but with the understanding it works only with the help of that very community.

Questions from readers, comments from readers, observations from readers — those are what made the fire updates such a solid resource for the entire community.

From noon Sunday, June 22, through midnight Monday, June 23, a 36-hour time span, we had more than 190,000 reads of articles online. The vast majority were people checking in to see how the fire was progressing.

We know our job is to keep you informed about what happens in your community. We know our online readers play a vital part in making that information as timely as possible.

Another variation of the two-way communication took place Thursday and Friday, as people reacted to our story about the rash of vehicle vandalism in north Napa.

Reader response to news events is a new form of community journalism, and that’s what we are about.

Dan Ross is the Register’s Multimedia Producer. He writes on local state and national issues when not trying to drive up to — and through — fire lines. He can be reached at dross@napanews.com or 256-2264.