Apocalypse Now

First time I visited California, I watched the progress of a nearby brush fire, and felt the Apocalypse approach:

A few minutes before they had been on the vacation of a lifetime, but now Russell Allevato and his family were running for their lives from a raging brushfire that had trapped them and hundreds of other terrified people on a traffic-jammed highway connecting Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

"People were screaming. It was just crazy," said Allevato, who watched helplessly Friday afternoon as flames engulfed his rental car and destroyed everything inside it while he, his nephew and two teenage daughters fled to safety.