NPR's Annabelle Gurwitch was channel-surfing on a plane when she hit CNN and saw land very close to her home in flames. She described evacuating her home:

I packed our cat, our son's favorite stuffed animals, my grandmother's silver and a really expensive pair of shoes. No underwear, but our wedding invitation and some designer shampoo! What was I thinking?

It's weird to drive away from your home as flames shoot up in your rear-view mirror. As I sped away in one car and my husband and son took off in the other, I had the same barely-in-control feeling I had watching the '92 riots unfold. Roads closed off, street lights out, police and firetrucks racing by me, cars honking.

Columnist Patt Morrison lives the lush life in L.A., the city with the most millionaires. The Manhattan Institute's Tamar Jacoby notices a shift in the immigration debate away from to-amnesty-or-not-to-amnesty toward how to structure the system in the future. Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash offers his take on Tony Blair's legacy.

The editorial board praises the bravery of the Los Angeles Fire Department, asks Tehran to release its "soft hostages", and finds one frivolous lawsuit it wouldn't mind seeing--Disney taking on Al Aqsa TV for making its own decidedly un-American Mickey Mouse.

On the letters page, Candysse Miller notes that in the wake of the fires, everyone should remember to have "household evacuation and financial recovery plans in the land of natural disasters."