You might say I went out in a blaze of glory... or vanished in a puff of smoke.

Either way, I ended 12 years of news directing in San Diego with a great reminder of why local news matters.

On a Sunday afternoon, the October 2007 wildfires swept in from the eastern foothills. Fed by furious Santa Anas, the flames advanced on Ramona, Dulzura and Jamul; Poway, Fallbrook and Rancho Santa Fe; and the San Diego neighborhood of Rancho Bernardo. They forced massive evacuations, engulfed hundreds of homes, killed 10 people, and kept KPBS broadcasting non-stop for nearly 80 hours.

With my long-planned resignation date set for November 7th, I was more in the easy-going mode of packing for our move and saying long goodbyes than I was prepared for amped-up Level Five crisis coverage. In fact, during the earliest hours of the Witch and Harris fires on October 21st, I was working at home, unaware, getting an outside fence repaired for our incoming tenants.

It's amazing how much work was suddenly packed into that week and the week that followed. Practically the entire station staff (more than 100) contributed in some way -- even though the SDSU campus closed and even if the work consisted of bringing in food and drinks for the overtaxed news crews. Plus, we enjoyed the true generosity of our public radio colleagues. KQED in San Francisco, KJZZ in Phoenix, KPCC in Los Angeles and National Public Radio all lent KPBS significant support.

That spirit of generosity included one of our commercial competitors, too, in perhaps one of the most significant acts of local media cooperation ever seen in San Diego. It came about when the fires knocked out our main transmitter. Frantic to keep the public informed, KPBS program director John Decker called the management of 94.9 FM and asked if they'd replace their music format with KPBS fire coverage. They agreed with almost no hesitation. It sounded a little weird to hear KPBS news announcers break for 94.9's commericals, but it was a significant public service during the roughly 24 hours it took our heroic engineers to get a temporary transmitter up again on our home frequency of 89.5 FM.

One of the enduring outcomes of the disaster -- from the local station's perspective -- is the amazing break-through of our small website crew who drew a worldwide audience to our streaming audio, our news and Twitter posts and our interactive Google map. In fact, so compelling was the map's ability to convey the range and impact of the fires, that Google sent experts to help KPBS deal with the crush of on-line hits. It will always be said that KPBS's "new media" department came of age in that exhausting marathon news coverage of October 2007.

When all was said and done, it was gratifying to catch up on all the correspondence that had piled up during those exhausting days -- because message after message conveyed such deep appreciation for our hard work. And unlike the old days when it was only the local audience who took note, these messages poured in from around the country and around the world via our web presence. Yet it wasn't some national or global perspective they were praising, it was the detailed level of local service they loved so much.

So gratifying a reminder of why I pledged those 12 years to KPBS.