So I was in Santa Barbara most of last week on business. The first plume of smoke appeared in the hills on Tuesday, shortly after my plane touched down; by the time I took the red eye home on Friday night, the hills were a raging inferno. My hotel was evacuated on Thursday night, and a few of my friends were forced out of their homes for several days. Because the fires were in the hills, elevated above the city, it was easy to watch them from many different vantage points. During the day, huge clouds of brown smoke obscured beautiful blue skies. At night, the orange fires put on a light show. In the mornings, black-and-white ashes were everywhere, like a dusting of snow.

If you had only 15 or 20 minutes to decide what to put in your car before leaving, perhaps forever, what would you take? My friend Lanny Ebenstein, a Hayek biographer, grabbed his Christmas ornaments, his old Boy Scout uniform, and, of course, a big stack of Hayek books.

Another friend, who is 91 years old (and ridiculously fit), spent part of one night in an emergency-relief shelter. His advice: Don’t ever let yourself become infirm, because the most troubled people he saw were the elderly.

A taxi driver’s home was evacuated while he was working. The police wouldn’t allow him back into his neighborhood. He was worried about his cat.

As of now, the burning has consumed 13 square miles and 77 homes. Apparently the cause of the fire was a power tool.