High Country News has won the Thomas L. Stokes Award for Best Energy and Environment Writing for its reporting on the aftermath of a fracking site explosion in Colorado.

National Press Foundation judges said: “High Country News produced a gripping story about what can go terribly wrong in fracking, weaving strong local reporting into a multimedia narrative that captured the fear and alarm in the aftermath of the 2017 explosion. Fracking accidents like the Windsor fire prompted the Colorado legislature to pass a bill giving cities and counties more voice in regulating oil and gas development.”

Journalists Daniel Glick and Jason Plautz of The Story Group reported the winning entry, with visual storytelling colleague Ted Wood. The Stokes award carries a $2,000 prize.

Judges gave an honorable mention to Reuters for “Ocean Shock,” a project on how climate change is forcing an unprecedented fish migration, which it called “an epic underwater refugee crisis.”