Firestorm
Here what it looked like in Encinitas on Oct 22 2007

I have some thoughts, I'd like to share.
First of all, incredible synergy of community. It is one of those moments when everybody feels that he or she is a part of single entity. You just need to be here to feel it. Hmm, as I wrote it, I realized that it is a bad advise :) The information flow is incredibly dense. All major radio stations cancel their routine broadcast and dedicated to passing information 24/7. And it is not a chase for rating. It is sincere desire to be helpful and realization of responsibility as one of the major source of information.
Officials act very and very organized. Firefighters, police, city - every related organization act synchronously.
People: leave their places organized and don't wait until the last moment. This allows firefighters to concentrate on... well, actually fire, instead of saving those trapped in fire.

On this background TV looks rather disappointing. Being much more capable of passing information, TV somehow manages to be much less useful then radio. May be the model of producing pseudo news, when the art of reporting is substituted with choosing a dramatic background and reading a text with tragic voice shows it weakness when it comes to something real. I'm sorry, if I offend some people who work hard for TV, but that's what I see. The end result counts.

It took me some time to find some useful and actual information in internet.
Here is a news aggregation.

Here is a google map with fire areas, shelters, roads avialability and other useful information.
Huge thanks to KPBS crew. You guys really make difference.