By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

This has been a busy week for me, but come Saturday I get to do something special on my night off. As you may have heard, I'm going to host Saturday Night Live. It's quite an opportunity, and it got me thinking about exactly whose footsteps I'll be following in. I don't mean all the actors and comedians who normally host SNL; they're in the entertainment business, after all. And I'm not thinking about the dozen or so professional athletes who have hosted the show over its 32-year history, including Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky, Chris Evert, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Lance Armstrong and even O.J. Simpson, way back in 1978. Like entertainers, they know how to play to a crowd.

No, I was wondering about the category that I'm in, which is "none of the above." As it turns out, Saturday Night Live has a tradition of drawing from that category as well, starting with the very first season, when Ron Nessen hosted on April 17, 1976. Who was Ron Nessen? He was a former White House correspondent for NBC News, who had gone on to become press secretary to President Gerald Ford. Ford was the target of a lot of SNL humor in those early days, just like every president since. Ford had a sense of humor about it, and even made a cameo appearance on the show Nessen hosted.

Usually, politicians are what Saturday Night Live makes fun of. But they've also been invited to host the show occasionally. That list includes Rudolph Giuliani, Al Gore, John McCain, Steve Forbes, Julian Bond and Ed Koch. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader hosted the show in 1977, years before he ran for president. And presidential son Ron Reagan did the honors in 1986 (famously doing his underpants-only imitation of Tom Cruise in "Risky Business"). Some SNL hosts have been in a category all their own, such as Hugh Hefner (1977), George Steinbrenner (1990) and Donald Trump (2004).  

Sportscaster John Madden hosted SNL on January 30, 1982 -- six days after doing color commentary during one of the most-watched broadcasts in American television history: Super Bowl XVI. An estimated 85 million people watched the 49ers beat the Bengals, 26 to 21; Madden's SNL audience may have been somewhat smaller.

In 1985, Saturday Night Live was hosted by another sportscasting legend: Howard Cosell. Ten years earlier, when SNL started, it was called "NBC's Saturday Night," because its current name was then taken by an ABC variety show called "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell." The Cosell version didn't last long, however, and in 1976, SNL got the rights to the name it is known by to this day.

Finally, there is Edwin Newman, who hosted SNL in 1984, and anchored "Weekend Update" on several other occasions. Ed was a best-selling author and an expert on the English language, but he was -- and is -- best known for his many years as a correspondent and anchor for NBC News. Now how on earth did a guy like that get to host Saturday Night Live?

More on all this later, but for now it's time to get back to Job One. We hope you can join us tonight for Nightly News.

Editor's note:  First Person "Photo of the Day" is a regular feature of photography submitted by users and readers.

Christine Haldeman from Pa. shares this photo:

"A picture of my oldest daughter with her twin sisters.  Maybe I am bias, but this picture was too cute to pass up sending in."

Happy Halloween!

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By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I just got back from a great visit with 200 students -- a great, informed and involved group of young people who all attend Drexel University in Philadelphia, the scene of tonight's debate on MSNBC among the Democratic candidates for president. It occured to me today the view has changed from the podium recently. As someone who gives a fair number of speeches, it was a striking sight to stand at the lectern today looking out, as just about every student in the audience, at one point in my remarks, whipped out a cell phone and aimed their camera at me. Just as cell phones have replaced lighters as the light source of choice at concerts, they are now ubiquitous (in their role as cameras) at public events of all kinds. The students' questions were sharp: they asked about Africa (and my travels there with Bono), health care, the Iraq war, the process of picking debate questions, the role of the media in the national conversation -- and Stephen Colbert's broken wrist awareness campaign.

It's a sparkling day here, a great day for Drexel's campus to be on national display. Tim Russert and I, along with our senior political coverage staff, just emerged from a planning meeting where we went over questions. Presently I'm on the planning conference call for Nightly News. It's a full day.

Our in-house historian Andy Franklin reminds me that all the candidates in tonight's debate will no doubt closely scrutinize tomorrow morning's headlines to see how their performance played. The fact is, no politician should ever underestimate the power of a punchy headline, as President Gerald Ford learned 32 years ago today. On October 30, 1975, New Yorkers woke up to a headline in the Daily News that became an instant, unforgettable classic: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." It referred to a speech Ford had given the day before, saying he would offer no Federal bailout of New York.

The city at the time was going though a severe fiscal crisis, actually on the verge of bankruptcy. Ford took a hard line, insisting that New York put its own house in order. The president said he was "prepared to veto any bill that has as its purpose a Federal bailout of New York City to prevent a default." He never uttered the words "drop dead," but the Daily News headline -- written by managing editor William A. Brink -- resonated with New Yorkers, and seemed to sum up the bad feelings that existed then between the (mostly Democratic) city and the (Republican) Ford administration. Within hours after the headline appeared, Ford was asked by veteran New York reporter Gabe Pressman if "drop dead" was the message he intended to convey. "Not at all," said Ford, who blamed New York's fiscal woes on "mismanagement" by local officials. Ford insisted, "I have great sympathy for the people of New York, the eight million people who have been misled, who have not been given the leadership that they need."

Years later, Jerry Ford was more blunt about the headline: "It more than annoyed me because it wasn't accurate. It was very unfair." Veteran presidential staffer David Gergen was a Treasury department official in 1975, and had a hand in writing Ford's speech, which he later called "a doozy." Gergen recalled, "New Yorkers had not foreseen how tough the president would be, and Republicans in Washington had not anticipated how angry the response would be."

The irony is that Ford's tough stance actually helped force New York to help itself, fiscally speaking, and when the city began to do that, the president softened his position. New York recovered, and has since thrived. But the impact of that one headline was undeniable. It may have been in the back of New Yorkers' minds the following year when it came time to vote. In 1976, Gerald Ford lost New York -- and the presidency -- to Jimmy Carter.

A footnote: If there were such a thing as a headline hall of fame, then "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD" would certainly be among the first inductees. That is probably not the case for the far less memorable New York Times headline from the same day: "FORD, CASTIGATING CITY, ASSERTS HE'D VETO FUND GUARANTEE; OFFERS BANKRUPTCY BILL."

We look forward to having you join us tonight from Philadelphia, for Nightly News, and for the Democratic presidential debate at 9p.m. eastern time on MSNBC.

Federal officials and legal experts agree that what the State Department gave to Blackwater guards in Iraq is not immunity from prosecution but rather a promise not to use statements by the employees against them.

The Justice Department says the move by State's diplomatic security investigators complicated the effort to prosecute Blackwater employees. But this may all be academic, given the doubt about whether federal law actually covers their activities in Iraq in the first place.

Justice and State Department officials say Diplomatic Security investigators told the Blackwater guards that they must answer questions, but that anything they said would not be used against them. This is a standard warning in government misconduct investigations, though some legal experts are surprised it was given in a case like this involving potential criminal conduct.

The tactic is an outgrowth of a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision. The court said if government employees are told they'll be dismissed if they don't cooperate with an internal investigation, anything they say cannot be used to prosecute them. In other words, the government can't coerce employees into self-incrimination by threatening to fire them. State apparently decided that same protection extends to contractors. And a State Department official today says this procedure has been used routinely by State investigators in Iraq following shooting incidents.

A team of FBI agents was sent to Iraq specifically to work around the immunity problem. Its task was to gather evidence independent of what Blackwater told State's Diplomatic Security investigators. Today, a Justice spokesman says, "Any suggestion that the Blackwater employees in question have been given immunity from federal criminal prosecution is inaccurate. The Justice Department and the FBI continue the criminal investigation of this matter knowing that this investigation involves a number of complex issues."

That's an understatement. Federal law says Americans who commit crimes overseas can be prosecuted if they do it "while employed by or accompanying the Armed Forces." Many legal experts say Blackwater, working under contract to the State Department, doesn't come under that law.

For now, the FBI continues its investigation. Agents have not yet talked to all the Blackwater employees involved, some of whom have returned to the US and others of whom have obtained lawyers.

Oct. 30: NBC's Brian Williams previews tonight's Democratic
Presidential Candidates Debate and introduces the candidates' sound check
stand-ins. Click here to watch.

By Mika Brzezinski, NBC News correspondent

They are called sports performance training centers. Some say they will become as mainstream and as necessary as the SAT prep course.

Uh oh. Another thing for us parents to wonder whether we should be doing for our kids!

At the centers, parents pay a fee for their kids to hone their skills at tennis, soccer, field hockey... you name it. The trainers are former professional athletes who help young athletes improve their game.

Now, before you roll your eyes and think "what next?," I must say, my oldest child (she's 11) would love these centers. She loves tennis and loves the thought of "training" like a professional athlete.

And that's what the kids at these centers do. Like little ants, children as young as nine years old run drills, jump up and down, and build muscles I am sure I did not have at that age.

The centers are cool places. too. Lots of action, and trainers who not only know their stuff, but build confidence and a team atmosphere.

At a time when obesity is a national crisis, and physical education programs are being cut back, you might wonder what could be wrong with the rapid growth of "sports performance training" for kids.

One question is, how far do we push our kids to be competitive? Do they really know what they want to be doing at 11 years old? Some experts say we are starting them too young, risking injury, and not allowing children to be children. Allow them to be kids? With free time? What a concept!

One mom we spoke to admits if her son gets that college scholarship, it will all be worth it - and her son is only 12!

And what about the notion of a level playing field in the school environment; do these centers further separate the "haves" from the "have-nots"?

Today's parenting is a tricky balance. And this new trend adds a whole new dimension to the competition of raising kids.

Watch exclusive Web video: Are we pushing our kids too far?

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

At its core, television news is not a complicated business. It is about bringing the events of the world into people's homes (or these days, wherever they happen to be), and doing it with intelligence, speed and accuracy -- and maybe a little style. But doing it well can be extraordinarily difficult. Those who are best at it make it look easy, and no one was better at it than Jim Cummins, who died this past weekend. Jim was a correspondent for NBC News -- a field reporter -- for some thirty years, based out of Chicago, then Dallas. For many of those years he was also our Southwest bureau chief.

Field reporting is at the heart of what we do every day, and Jim simply excelled at it, year in and year out. He covered all kinds of stories, bringing to them clarity, immediacy, and a human touch. That he did this so well for so long is remarkable. That he did it so dependably and selflessly, and was such a pleasure to work with -- well, that was a gift.

It's fitting that we remember Jim today, because this is an important date in the history of NBC News, and of this broadcast. On October 29, 1956 -- 51 years ago today -- the modern era of network evening news began, with the debut of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, co-anchoring what would become known as the Huntley-Brinkley Report. As we've said before, Chet and David, and their legendary producer Reuven Frank, created the template that has shaped so much of television news ever since. They were pioneers in what was then a young business, still being invented.

Television news itself has been around for close to 60 years, and it's worth pointing out that for more than half of that history, Jim Cummins was a part of it. We're proud that he was our colleague, and grateful that he was our friend.

Here is the statement about Jim that was released this weekend by NBC News President Steve Capus:

   The NBC News family has lost a gentle giant of a man. Veteran NBC correspondent and bureau chief, Jim Cummins died this evening. His beloved wife Connie and their six children were with him as he passed away at the all-too-young age of 62. 
   It is fitting that Jim had a big family. After all, he spent decades making Americans feel right at home, with his down to earth, warm reporting style, delivery and presence. During a distinguished career with NBC News, Jim covered all kinds of breaking news assignments and memorable features. As Brian Williams recently put it, Jim was the definition of a field correspondent who seemingly covered every story more than once. 
   Jim was a child of Midwest America, with roots that stretched back to his birthplace in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He loved sports, and made a name for himself on the basketball court at Northwestern University. He earned his B.A. and master's degrees at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.
   Jim began his broadcast career in 1969 at KGLO-TV in Mason City, Iowa. He moved to WOTV in Grand Rapids, Michigan as an anchor and reporter in 1970. Three years later, he joined the NBC station in Milwaukee, WTMJ. Jim's next leap was to WMAQ-TV in Chicago. That move lead to Jim's hiring in 1978 as a Chicago-based correspondent for NBC News. In 1989, Jim became our Southwest bureau chief and correspondent, based in Dallas.
   What a run Jim had with NBC News. From U.S. political coverage, to plane crashes; from the civil war in El Salvador to countless hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. His reporting led our broadcasts day after day from places like Waco; Killeen; Oklahoma City and Galveston. He earned an Emmy in 1993 for his reporting on the Midwest floods.
   I thought of Jim often this week, as so many of our people showcased their brilliant talents covering the California wildfires. This was the kind of coverage that Jim poured himself into for decades.
   Jim and Connie had a vision for life after NBC. A damnable cancer diagnosis came a short time after he left the job, and those plans took a backseat to a courageous battle. Tonight, he's at peace. Jim Cummins was a good man.

Amen to that. We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

Oct. 26: NBC's Robert Bazell previews his story for this evening's Nightly News with Brian Williams. Click here to watch.

By Lester Holt, NBC News Anchor

Good afternoon. Among the stories we'll be covering on Nightly News tonight is the growing tension between the U.S. and Iran over Iran's nuclear program, and whether the level of rhetoric from the west is beginning to amount to saber rattling. Today Mohamed El Baradei, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog called on the west to ease off the confrontational rhetoric. NBC's Kevin Corke is working that story for us.

Tensions between the west and Iran helped drive crude oil prices to a new record high on Friday. CNBC's Sharon Epperson will join me tonight to talk about how this will directly affect consumers, and the overall U.S. economy.

We're also on top of a story developing in North Carolina where a fire at a beach house occupied by college students has killed at least six people. NBC's Ron Mott will have a lot more on this.

There's some encouraging news out of Southern California. Firefighters have made good progress over the last 24 hours containing the remaining wildfires, though they are reminding everyone that a forecast for stronger winds could easily put them back on their heels. NBC's Martin Savidge will have that, along with a great story about one little girl's special expression of gratitude to the firefighters working to save her community.

In addition tonight, I'll take you off the coast of South Africa where scientists have sounded the alarm over a steady drop in the penguin population, and show you what they are doing to try and keep the animals off the endangered species list.

Thank your for clicking-on to our blog, and I hope you can join us later for NBC Nightly News.

by Lester Holt, NBC News Anchor

Good afternoon from New York.  It's pouring outside our window here at Rockefeller Center and I can't help but wish we could somehow re-direct the rain to the drought-stricken south, or the fire scorched west.  We're covering both stories on Nightly News this evening.  NBC's Martin Savidge will tell us where the fires stand, and what Sunday's expected change in the winds may bring.  I was in California all week covering the fires, and as I was about to return home Thursday I noticed all the ground workers at LAX were wearing white masks.  The smoke was thick enough to cut with a knife. Tonight we'll look at what the fires have done to air quality in the region, and what the health affects might be.  Meantime on the drought front, NBC's Ron Mott will tell us about a dispute among three southern Governors over water, as the reservoir levels in that part of the country sink dangerously low.

The Homeland Security Department's effort to get states to switch to counterfeit-proof driver's licenses has just gotten a big boost from the state of New York which has become the fourth and largest state to announce it is signing on to the "Real I-D" program.  NBC's Justice correspondent Pete Williams will explain what it's all about and why so many states have been reluctant to join the program.

On the health front there is rising concern over the so-called staph super-bug, a drug resistant bacterial infection.  NBC's Mika Brzezinski is preparing a report for tonight that will answer some of the questions parents most want answered about this bug.

Sadly today, the NBC News family is saying farewell to one of its own.  Recently retired correspondent Jim Cummins died last night from cancer. Jim was a remarkable journalist who spent 30-years with this network.  He was also unflappable, and when ever I threw to him from the MSNBC anchor desk in the middle of a breaking story I knew we were in good hands.  We will have more on Jim's life and career on our broadcast tonight.

As always, thanks for checking-in. I hope you can join us tonight for NBC Nightly News.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

My favorite in-house fellow presidential history buff, Andy Franklin, reminds us today: it was 35-years ago this very day that one of the most memorable phrases of the entire Vietnam era entered the lexicon. On October 26, 1972, President Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger went before reporters at the White House and declared that "peace is at hand" in Vietnam. It wasn't just memorable. As it turned out, it was wrong.

The New York Times, Oct. 27, 1972

By then the war had been going on for years. It had cost tens of thousands of American lives, billions of dollars, and had left the country divided, exhausted, and eager to move on. Kissinger's announcement was greeted with euphoria for the most part, although skeptics questioned the timing -- less than two weeks before the presidential election. Kissinger's news conference was in response to North Vietnam's surprise announcement earlier that morning that an agreement to end the war was near. In fact, South Vietnam was not on board, and the North Vietnamese may have been trying to leverage the coming U.S. elections to pressure the Americans and the South Vietnamese to wrap up the deal being hammered out at the Paris peace talks. Nixon chief of staff Bob Haldeman recorded in his diary that day that Kissinger had called him at three in the morning "in a state of very great concern" to tell him what the North Vietnamese had done.

Kissinger's televised briefing that morning was a rarity. Given his thick accent and dour manner, the Nixon White House preferred to keep him off-camera. Nixon himself, whose relationship with Kissinger was complicated and competitive, thought that Kissinger had gone too far in the briefing, raising the nation's hopes (and reporters' expectations) too high by saying that peace was at hand. Nixon later wrote in his memoirs that after he heard what Kissinger had said, he "knew immediately that our bargaining position with the North Vietnamese would be seriously eroded," and the problems it would cause with South Vietnam "would be made even more difficult." Nixon is heard on White House tapes that day telling Haldeman, "See, the lead [story] that came out of his stuff, probably, is that 'peace is at hand.' Now that sets us up one hell of a hurdle. I wouldn't have said that." (emphasis added). Nixon then acknowledged, "We have to live with it now for ten days" – roughly the time remaining until the election. He and Haldeman go on to discuss the politics of the situation, and it's clear the president thought Kissinger had missed an opportunity in failing to go after Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern:

Nixon: I think also on Vietnam, we oughta attack McGovern. I think it's not enough, what we're doing. Say he would've sold out, he would've surrendered, he would've left our POW's  abandoned, that sort of thing.
Haldeman: I'd argue strongly, we should get ready for them. But we should not today --
Nixon: Oh, I understand that. But then shoot first.
Haldeman: But then shoot -- but be ready, and the instant he shoots in any direction, we shoot his head right off. 
Nixon: That's right. Oh, I understand that. What I meant -- let him -- it's like a mousetrap. The moment he gets out, crack the s*** out of him, rather than answering. 

Nixon then headed out on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Huntington, West Virginia, "As all of you have read or heard on your television tonight, there has been a significant breakthrough in the negotiations with regard to Vietnam." He was overstating the case, as Kissinger had done, but he added this understatement: "There are still differences to be worked out." Indeed there were. For the next month and a half, Kissinger tried to close the deal and end the war -- to achieve what Nixon called "peace with honor, not peace with surrender" -- in a way that was also acceptable to both North and South Vietnam. He failed. The talks finally collapsed in mid-December -- well after Richard Nixon had trounced George McGovern in one of the biggest landslides in American history.

At that point, what was at hand was not peace, but the most intense bombing campaign of the war. Now safely re-elected, Nixon unleashed waves of B-52 attacks against North Vietnam, telling Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas Moorer, "I don't want any more of this crap about the fact that we couldn't hit this target or that one. This is your chance to use military power to win this war, and if you don't I'll hold you responsible." The operation was code-named "Linebacker II," but it was better known as the Christmas Bombing. For 12 days, through late December, thousands of tons of bombs were dropped on Hanoi and Haiphong. When it was over, an agreement was finally reached with North Vietnam -- on January 9, 1973. It was Richard Nixon's 60th birthday.

Which reminds us: today is Hillary Clinton's 60th birthday. These days she's running for the office Richard Nixon once held, but back in 1972 when "peace was at hand," she was a young Wellesley and Yale Law School grad named Hillary Rodham, celebrating her 25th birthday and campaigning for George McGovern with her boyfriend Bill Clinton. Two years later, she had a job on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee as it pursued the impeachment of Richard Nixon. And that reminds us of something else: 35 years ago today, after Henry Kissinger had raised such high and premature hopes about Vietnam, Bob Haldeman confessed in his diary that the whole episode had a bright side: "It takes the corruption stuff [Watergate] off the front pages, totally wipes out any other news." And it did, too -- for a while.
 
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.  We have a powerful Making A Difference report tonight from the fire lines out west -- about a dozen people who were clearly willing to give their lives to put out the fire and save others.  We hope you have a good weekend, and we'll look for you Monday night.

By John Rutherford, NBC News Producer, Washington

The identity of the enemy in Iraq keeps shifting like the desert sands. "As the Sunni insurgents quit fighting us, the problems we have with criminality and other militia, many of them Shia, become relatively more important," a U.S. embassy official told the Washington Post. As for al-Qaeda in Iraq, President Bush stresses its continued danger, despite recent U.S. successes. "Al-Qaeda is not going to go away anytime soon," the president said in his latest news conference.

To the soldiers in Iraq, it's hard to tell who they're fighting.

"Where I was at [in Baghdad], we usually got mortars, rockets, all that stuff around there, but no one really knows who's shooting them," Pfc. Abelino Gomez, 21, of San Diego said today following a Purple Heart ceremony at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Gomez is recovering from shrapnel wounds in his stomach.

Spc. Donald Gray III, 23, of Boston, wounded by a roadside bomb northeast of Baghdad, said American forces simply fire back at whoever's firing at them.

"I mean, they don't dress any different than the regular people over there," Gray said. "It's really hard to tell."

Not that it makes much difference who's doing the firing.

"It really doesn't," 1st Lt. Juan Guerrero, 36, of Miami said. "I mean, the enemy of the United States is the enemy of the United States, so it doesn't matter where they come from, or who they are."

Despite this, the wounded soldiers felt progress is being made in Iraq.

"If we could just get over that fast food mentality, of everything has to be done right now, and we have patience, it will get done," Sgt. Shaun Chandler, 30, of Paradise, Pa., said. Both Chandler and Guerrero were wounded by roadside bombs in Baghdad.

In Afghanistan, U.S. forces face the same problem identifying the enemy.

"You can't tell them from the regular villagers," Spc. Robert Remmel, 22, of Waukesha, Wis., said. "So you kind of have to land on top of them."

Remmel was shot in the side during an enemy attack in northern Afghanistan. He, too, is optimistic about the war in which he fought.

"In my mind, Afghanistan is a winnable war," Remmel said. "It is very much so a winnable war, and I do believe we're making progress there."

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly tribute to service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Al Henkel, NBC News producer

Before they step onto the fire line, every wild land firefighter in the country straps on a fire shelter, a small tent-like object, coated with aluminum reflective material which they hope they never have to use. If you can't get away from an approaching fire front, you ditch your pack and tools, climb into the shelter and wait it out. The shelter can shield whoever is inside from about 95% of radiant heat. It begins to delaminate, and melt at about 500 degrees. Shelter deployments are rare, but every firefighter is trained to get inside it in less than 20 seconds. Watch a demonstration.

This week, 12 orange County Fire Authority firefighters were forced to deploy their shelters at the Santiago Fire in Southern California. They were chasing a spot fire that was headed towards a small mountain community, dragging hose through waist high brush. The winds were whipping, and small fire grew very quickly. They were trapped on a ridge in sight of a highway, and in sight of a Los Angeles Times photographer who shot an amazing series of photographs. Photographer Karen Tapia-Anderson told us that she thought she was watching firefighters die right in front of her lens. "My heart was breaking for those men. Through my shroud and my goggles I can honestly say I began to cry myself because I felt like they weren't going to make it. And I began to pray for those guys. I did.  I prayed for those guys that they would be ok, I really did"

We met 5 of the 12 at their deployment site. In the typical firefighter manner, there were no tears, no wistful words, just a matter-of-fact explanation of what happened. Firefighter Brett Cowdell found the depression he scooped in the dirt to find clean air. "I deployed my shelter, put my face to the ground right here and jumped inside. We're already huffing and puffing cause we climbed the hills as fast as we could get up here I'm in the ground and I've got protection on my mouth, but it is burning as it's coming in." 

They were lying down on the ground that a fire had just passed over inside a foil pup tent, trapping all that heat inside. Estimates of the ground temperature: between 300 and 500 degrees. Imagine lying down inside your oven.

All 12 walked down the hill. All 12 were checked out by paramedics. All 12 wanted to go right back out on the line. You see, the fire was still moving towards people and houses. All of them wanted to do keep doing their jobs.

When I was a young reporter, I was interviewing a firefighter and he took his helmet off. Inside, next to a picture of his wife and kids, was written this verse: Isaiah 43:2. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you." He told me you would be hard pressed to find a firefighter without that verse written somewhere in his gear.

That verse has been in my helmet ever since.

Don Teague and I will bring you the story of the Santiago Fire story tonight.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

There's no city in America as stressed as San Diego right now. And there's no city any stronger. Smoke fills the air, there's a crisis underway, and almost to a person, they are dealing with it beautifully. People have come together in some extraordinary ways. During our time in the city, I never heard a voice raised in anger or frustration. Firefighters work days on end without evident fatigue.

I walked to our superb local station the other night from my hotel, to see my friends who work there. I simply felt the need to pay homage to their coverage and salute the absolutely incredible job they've been doing, broadcasting around the clock -- a genuine public service in a city seared by disaster. They are so proud of their city and their work, and they have every reason to be. They have welcomed our huge Nightly News road show with open arms, through the fog of exhaustion. 

The lobby of our hotel is a sea of people displaced by the fires. Families with children, children carrying cages housing hamsters, golden retrievers who seem thrilled at absolutely everything - wagging their tails with excitement at the chance to meet so many new friends. That's pretty much the San Diego way these days. What a challenge, what a horror, what a great collection of people coming together to heal what these flames have done. Keep them all in your thoughts and prayers.

Day Trip

Today is October 25th, and -- like every day of the year -- it has a little history behind it, if you know where to look. Take six years ago today, for example. On October 25, 2001, the Senate passed major new legislation, signed into law the next day by President Bush. The new law came to be known as the Patriot Act, and it gave the government sweeping and controversial new powers to fight terrorism. Critics claimed it went too far, eroding civil liberties and constitutional safeguards. Others disagreed. It was, remember, just weeks after 9/11; the Senate vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the bill (98 to 1; only Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin voted no).

Just a few months later, President Bush made his famous reference to Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil." The phrase evoked the Axis powers of World War II: Germany, Italy and Japan. Which brings us all the way back to October 25th, 1936 -- the date the Axis was born, when Italy announced it had formed an alliance with Nazi Germany (Japan would join later). In a speech about the new alliance, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini said, "This Berlin-Rome protocol is not a barrier, it is rather an axis around which all European States animated by a desire for peace may collaborate." The word "axis" stuck, though it led not to peace, but a massively destructive global war against the Allied Powers -- one of which was the Soviet Union.

That brings us to October 25, 1917, and the beginning of Soviet rule -- according to the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. On that day, the Bolsheviks toppled Russia's Provisional Government (which had replaced the Czar in February), and proclaimed the birth of the Soviet Union. A civil war followed, which ended when the Red Army took Vladivostok -- on October 25, 1922.

Though the Soviet Union would become America's ally in World War II, the two superpowers spent the Cold War that followed as bitter adversaries, coming to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That showdown produced a dramatic, public confrontation at the United Nations when U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson presented photographic evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, and challenged his Soviet counterpart, Valerian Zorin:

Stevenson: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed, and is  placing, medium and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no?  Don't wait for the translation - yes or no?
Zorin: I am not in an American courtroom, sir, and therefore I do not wish to answer a question that is put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor does. In due course, sir, you will have your reply.
Stevenson: You are in a court of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no…
Zorin: You will have your answer in due course.
Stevenson: I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision.

The Soviets ultimately backed down, of course, and removed their missiles from Cuba. And the date of that unforgettable exchange at the U.N.? As you might have guessed by now, it was October 25, 1962 -- 45 years ago today.

Fidel Castro allowed the Soviets to put their missiles in Cuba in part because he feared a U.S. invasion. That never happened, but years later, the United States did invade another Caribbean island nation -- Grenada -- on October 25, 1983.

We're back in New York, and we look forward to having you join us for tonight's broadcast.

Hi. The housing market continues to slide, and with Merill Lynch's $8 billion dollar writedown announcment and a new guesstimate on what real estate price declines will add up to, we're starting to talk real money. Plus: is the stock trading game rigged? The first shoe to drop on Iran, and the NYC press opens up a can of whoop-ass on the former mayor for joining Sawx nation.

CalculatedRisk posts about the NYT article this morning that started putting some new numbers of expected declines in real estate values country-wide (no pun intended). $4 trillion is the new upper-end estimate, and when you look at CR's chart, you can see how this doesn't seem the least bit far-fetched. CR also parses the new homes sales numbers reported today, which are getting headlines that say "rebound." CR patiently explains why this is ridiculous (the August #s were revised downward at a "shocking" rate, June and July's #s also revised downward, the year-over-year decline is a sickening 23.3%, and initial reports don't include cancellations which are running at record levels now.)  Bearish economist Nouriel Roubini takes some shots at critics who mocked his predicitions about fallout from the housing decline. And an lolcat shows just how far into the public consciousness the housing market mess has seeped.

A senior SEC official says insider trading is rampant on Wall St. and they've formed a working group to deal with it. Must be satisfying to trader/blogger Genesis who outdid himself last night with a trademark rant (on steroids). (Warning: contains mature language.) Jeffrey Cooper at Minyanville takes a different tone but comes to the same conclusions. And  here's a reminder: people always think the stock market is rigged, other people say you can't rig the invisible hand (or the collective social mood) for long. For some compelling arguments for the latter thesis, here's some highly recommended reading.

Here's the NYT's take on the U.S. sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps announced today. Chris Floyd writes up a scenario of the second shoe dropping. The Boston Globe editorializes about the state of diplomacy. Oh and ThinkProgress picked up on an interesting Congressional Quarterly find in the President's new war supplemental budget request: $88 million to retrofit B-2s so they can drop the mother of all (conventional) bombs (actually, M-O-P: Massive Ordnance Penetrator) and as my colleague Bob Windrem points out, there's nothing under the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan but more dirt. Tristero provides a helpful map.

Juan Cole writes that recent developments in Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan show that the President's "wing it" foreign policy isn't working too well.

Meanwhile, the site in Syria that the Israelis attacked in September seems to be coming into focus.. with even skeptics like Joe Cirincione saying the satellite photos look suspicious. But something that "looks suspicious" isn't always what people think it is, right?

Digby on the art of the political hissy fit.

Daily Pundit on President Bush's new designation: biggest spender ever.

Sidney Blumenthal's afterword for the reissue of Walter Lippman's "Liberty and the News" should be required reading for every journalist in America. Or more importantly, their bosses.

And a follow-up on my observation Tuesday that Giuliani's freak-out-inducing announcement that he's rooting for the Sawx was perhaps, genuine. I was wrong. At least I wasn't the only one who thought it was possible though! (Hat tip: Domenico Montanaro at Next Read)

By Anne Thompson, NBC News correspondent and Clare Duffy, NBC News producer

Editor's Note: Anne and Clare, both proud citizens of Red Sox Nation, filed twin blogs after last night's game at Fenway Park. Here's Anne's:

The first question asked of any Red Sox fan this week is "Do you have World Series tickets?" If the answer is "yes," the next question is "Where are they?"

Through the good graces and bad luck of Burbank senior producer Mike Mosher, he gave his two tickets to the World Series to producer Clare Duffy and me. We are all lifelong members of the Red Sox Nation.

Like two giddy kids, Clare and I entered Fenway Park last night through gate C, climbed the ramp of Section 42 and up the stairs to Row 50, seats 5 and 6. That would be the last row in the right field bleachers, our seats right under the "F" of the Ford logo.

Last night, they were the best seats in the house. We were there. We had a perfect view of the field to watch Big Papi, Manny, Beckett, and Dustin Pedroia pound the Rockies. We could hear the Sox's "dugout band" play. We joined the chant of "Fran-cis" as the Nation taunted Rockies pitcher, Jeff Francis. And we sang "Sweet Caroline" at the top of our lungs delaying Kevin Youkilis' last plate appearance. It was heaven.

One of the things I love about baseball is how it connects your past and present, and last night was no exception. Carl Yastrzemski and 19 other members of the 1967 "Impossible Dream" Sox were there for the first pitch. As a fifth grader in Boston, I wrote essays about Yaz and the '67 Sox for my English midterm exam. Years later, knowing Yaz's Triple Crown winning statistics (.326 battting average, 44 home runs, 121 runs batted in) would help me convince a reluctant Fay Vincent, the former baseball commisioner, to do an interview. And now, I would watch Yaz throw out the first pitch of my own impossible dream, seeing the Red Sox play in the World Series at Fenway.

The best, of course, was the outcome...13 to 1. While many of those in prime seats left early, the faithful in the bleachers stayed through rain and wind until the last out. We sang "Dirty Water" and "Tessie" and slowly walked down the stairs.

Finally at eye level with the field, Clare and I, like many others, stopped to take pictures. Strangers handed each other their cameras so everyone could capture that special moment, that impossible dream.

It was a wonderful game and a memorable night. As we sang..."Love that Dirty Water. (bump..bump...bump) Boston you're my home!"

Here's Clare's:

If there's one subject in the world of sports that has been responsible for more miles of column length, more hot air on television, more books, documentaries and other pop culture ephemera, it's Red Sox Nation.

So what's one more blog from two exhausted but happy fans?

My colleague Anne Thompson and I are both devout members of the Nation, having grown up in suburban Boston. Never, though, had either of us been to a World Series game at Fenway, such opportunities coming along only rarely. Through fortune smiling on us in the form of a like-minded colleague who could not use his tickets, I found myself speeding to Boston on a train yesterday afternoon to meet Anne with the precious tickets in my kung fu grip. I kept thinking it was too good to be true, peering at them obsessively, trying to divine if they were counterfeit.

Getting off the train at South Station, it was like the air had changed - everywhere were Sox hats, jerseys, jackets, signs, flags. And something else - swagger. Boston fans are not known for ever being shy about expressing themselves, but with the 2004 World Series win in their back pockets, these are fans who have been here before. Indeed, in the last few years, Boston has become almost used to victory, be it at Fenway or down at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, where Bill Belichick's Patriots are almost ho-hum in their relentless dismantling of any opposition. In the words of one scribe, "Welcome to Trophytown." Somehow the chip-on-the-shoulder bitterness that underpins the id of any true Red Sox fan is almost unseemly now, what with the second highest payroll in baseball, and an organization that fully expected to be playing this late into October.

That still doesn't mean the "Yankees s**k" t-shirts don't fly off the shelves.

Anne and I got to the park just as the jet flyover happened, walking through the streets of Back Bay. As we made our way to our seats, we quickly realized we were in the absolute last row of the bleachers in right field. Any further and we'd be out on the street. But for us, they were the best seats in the house - the bleachers are the province of the true fan. The corporate types, those that treat the World Series as just another event that's fun to say you were at, sit elsewhere. Indeed, two Fenway season-ticket holders sat in front of us, having been evicted from their usual seats for the Series so their seats could be sold for top dollar. But no matter, we were now all bleacher creatures - yelling at the top of our lungs, thrilling to a lead-off home run by rookie Dustin Pedroia, high-fiving as the Red Sox juggernaut rolled on. It is no exaggeration to say there was nowhere else we would rather have been.

As the game blew open, it became less fun to jeer at the hapless Colorado pitching staff so the bleacher folk left off doing that, and started jeering the vendor selling rain ponchos - apparently buying rain garb is a sign of weakness. There's that swagger again. I wondered, who are these people? These are not the craven Boston fans I remember, cringing, waiting for collapse. As Anne and I sang along to "Sweet Caroline" - late inning tradition at Fenway - I couldn't help but think, it can't be this easy. And it won't be. Boston fans have a few more hours to savor the flavor because the Rockies aren't likely to let last night happen again.

Welcome to Trophytown, indeed.

By John Rutherford, NBC News Producer, Washington

Eight soldiers and one Marine died last week in Iraq, bringing the number of American deaths to 3,827 through Oct. 21. Another 446 service members have died in Afghanistan.

1. Army Sgt. 1st Class Justin Monschke, 28, of Krum, Texas, a Green Beret, died Oct. 14 when he got out of a vehicle in Arab Jabour, Iraq, and stepped on a roadside bomb. His brother, Jarett, had to break the news to their mother. "Jarett came to me, and he couldn't get it out," their mother told WFAA. "I knew from his face, and I just started screaming." Monschke leaves his widow, Melissa, and their children, Ashley, Ryan, and Dylan.

2. Army Pfc. Kenneth Iwasinski, 22, and his father were going to work on a car together and catch up when he returned home from Iraq to West Springfield, Mass., in January. But he was killed Oct. 14 by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, while on patrol with the 2nd Infantry Division. "I talked to him 20 minutes before he went out on that mission," his father told the Springfield Republican. "He was coming to the end of his tour. I wanted to make sure that he stayed focused."

3. Army 1st Lt. Thomas Martin, 27, of Ward, Ark., was the son of career military parents. A graduate of West Point, he was a cavalry scout officer with the 25th Infantry Division. Martin was killed Oct. 14 by small arms fire in Al Busayiki, Iraq. "It was just devastating," his high school physics teacher told KATV. "It's the news that hits you in the gut and makes you want to sit down and cry when you hear it." Martin was due home in a few weeks.

4. Army Spc. Jason Koutroubas, 21, of Dunnellon, Fla., was remembered as a quiet, unassuming kid who always wanted to be in the military. He was a ground station analyst with the 1st Cavalry Division in Tal Afar, Iraq. "He said there were a lot of sandstorms, and he missed trees," a friend told the Ocala Star-Banner. Koutroubas, who looked forward to going to college, died Oct. 14 in a non-combat incident. He leaves a widow and infant daughter.

5. Army Spc. Micheal Brown of Williamsburg, Kan., joined the Army in 2005. Although only 20 years old, he was on his second tour in Iraq when he died Oct. 16 of an undisclosed illness at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. He had been transported from Tikrit, Iraq, the day before. Brown was an aviation operations specialist with the 1st Infantry Division. "He was a very funny, witty, and outgoing guy," a friend wrote in legacy.com.

6. Army Spc. Vincent Madero, 22, of Port Hueneme, Calif., was with the 1st Cavalry Division. In June, six months after returning from his first tour in Iraq, he married his wife, Ellen. In August, he returned to Iraq for another tour. "He wanted to go back so he could help the younger guys," his sister told the Ventura County Star. On Oct. 17, he was killed by a roadside bomb in Balad. Besides Ellen, he leaves her baby son from another relationship.

7. Army Staff Sgt. Jarred Fontenot, 35, of Port Barre, La., and his sister were raised by their grandparents after their father died when Fontenot was 9 and their mother died three years later. Fontenot died Oct. 18 of injuries suffered in a fire fight in Baghdad. "I was numb," his grandfather told the Colorado Springs Gazette. "I wanted to cry." Fontenot, with the 2nd Infantry Division, is survived by his widow and four children, two of whom are autistic.

8. Army Spc. Wayne Geiger, 23, of Lone Pine, Calif., graduated from high school in 2003, joined the Army in 2005, and deployed to Iraq in 2007. Less than two months into his tour, on Oct. 18, he was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. Geiger, with the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, is survived by his parents and sister. "Our family's sorrow is so deep there are no words for it," a cousin wrote in sierrawave.net.

9. Marine Cpl. Erik Garoutte, 22, of Santee, Calif., was assigned to an anti-terrorism security team. He died Oct. 19 at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. He collapsed while exercising and never regained consciousness. His mother had a heart attack when she heard of his death. "The doctor said that literally a piece of her heart died with him," a family friend told the San Diego Union-Tribune. Besides his mother, who is recovering, Garoutte is survived by his father and four siblings.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly tribute to service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Chai Collins, Intern, NBC News Los Angeles bureau

I am a senior at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California and for the past 96 hours our community has been on edge. During the beginning stages of the fire, several students including myself had packed a few belongings into our cars and were ready to leave campus at a moment's notice, but we feared that we had nowhere to go. With the fire raging on one side of campus and the ocean on the other, it became clear that if the fire grew completely out of hand... we were potentially waiting in a death trap.    

For the past three nights, my roommates and I were terrified to sleep at night. Although we were assured by the president of Pepperdine that it was safer to remain on campus, there was still great potential for additional fires to spark close by and creep onto campus in the middle of the night. The blackened hillside and the burned cars on campus are evidence that my school came close to burning down. 

Since coming to Pepperdine four years ago, I have witnessed a major mudslide that blocked off the Pacific Coast Highway and a fire last January that came close to campus, damaging a few homes in Malibu. However, nothing I've seen can compare to the magnitude of this fire and the devastation it has caused to the community. A local church, which many students attend, has burned, a pupil's apartment is damaged after the roof caught fire, and the Malibu Colony Plaza (home of the famed student hangout Malibu Yogurt) has sustained extensive exterior damage and is likely to be closed for many weeks.

Today is the first day things seem to be getting back to normal. Our local grocery store has reopened, the Santa Ana winds have worked to clear most of the smoke that was lingering over campus, and the surrounding fire is said to be nearly contained. This morning, our school President Andy Benton held a convocation for students in honor of the firefighters, Pepperdine staff members, and the local community for acting efficiently in a time of crisis. Many students who had evacuated campus have returned and we are also recommencing classes today.

Right now I am no longer on pins and needles. I feel as though I can finally breathe easily knowing my friends at Pepperdine, my family in San Diego, and I made it through this situation unharmed... and that if necessary, I am prepared to act quickly and leave my possessions behind.

Oct. 24: Brian Williams video blogs north of San Diego on a blistering hot day, on the efforst to combat the fires. 

WATCH VIDEO

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

It's a scorcher of a day here in Southern California. The local news forecast graphic on the 11 o'clock news last night actually read: SMOKY, SUNNY, HOT. The Santa Ana winds have died down, but the biggest of the fires have not. We're at a staging area full of spent firefighters; everybody's spent -- completely exhausted. This is an all-consuming emergency for this region. The air is bad today; I saw some tourists -- seniors -- in downtown San Diego wearing masks this morning. Some of the larger fires aren't expected to be put down until well into November.

Yesterday in this space we provided links to local television and newspaper coverage of this story. There is also a vast amount of additional information about the fires on the Web -- maps, images, video, blogs and other resources. Here's a somewhat random and by no means comprehensive list of related links worth browsing:

http://sdfires.pbwiki.com/

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/southern-california-fire-maps.html

http://map.sdsu.edu/

http://sandiegofires.blogspot.com/

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3

http://twitter.com/latimesfires

http://searchengineland.com/071023-111626.php

http://jamesewelch.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/san-diego-fire-resources-witch-creek-others-2007/

http://www.livingwithfire.info/

We hope you can join us tonight, as our own teams have worked awfully hard in the heat, smoke and flames to get this broadcast on the air. Thank you for watching.

Oct. 24: Mark Potter previews his report on illegal immigration into the U.S. by Cubans, by way of Mexico. WATCH VIDEO.

By Mike Taibbi, NBC News correspondent

Watch Mike Taibbi's story here

Driving out from New York City to a tiny airfield in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, just past Gettysburg, I had an idea what to expect...how the story would go. There was a character at the story's center... a wheelchair-bound former Navy pilot named Richard "Footch" Fucci who'd learned to fly specially-adapted gliders and believed others with disabling injuries or illnesses could benefit the way he had from experiencing the life-affirming glory of free flight. I'd been in gliders a number of times and it never got old: you're up there, circling and soaring on the thermals or the waves of wind, just like the birds who owned the sky first. It's thrilling, no question, similar to hang-gliding in the sensation of pure flight.

Footch was a great salesman for the sport he loved, and that he'd decided to pass along to others. In the past couple of years, as the events director for the group called Freedom's Wings, Footch had introduced his sport to well over a hundred people... men, women, kids...some of them wounded war vets and others enduring challenges in their everyday lives from paralysis or debilitating illnesses like cystic fibrosis or spina bifida. Now he and his group were trying to find a way to spread their message and their program for people with disabilities even further, by affiliating with the scores of other soaring groups organized across the country.

"Back in June," he told us, "a young woman flew with us and afterward said, 'I can't get up on a curb [with her wheelchair], but I can fly an airplane!' And that captures our mission, the spirit of Freedom's Wings...to say 'What else can I do that I didn't think I could do because I had a disability?'"

So Footch lives that mission... showing a couple of Iraq War vets recovering from terrible injuries how to grab for an exhilarating experience, just as he had despite his own terrible injuries. The soldiers...Nick Paupore and Bruce Dunlap, who'd been driven out from Walter Reed Army Medical Center...were kids again, whooping and laughing and saying sure, they'll do it again and think about qualifying as glider pilots with their new Freedom's Wings friends. Footch beamed; it had worked again. Again, he'd made a difference in strangers' lives. He'd shown them that in this sport... a sport that needs a team on the ground and hours if not days of prep work so individual pilots can thrill to its gifts for however many minutes the prevailing winds allow... you can't tell in the air whether a pilot has the use of his legs or not.

But if Footch with his boundless energy was the engine for our story, his pal Bill Murphy was, to me, its complicated soul. When I first saw "Murph" he seemed to be frowning; he looked gruff, wary... you know the type. Anger in there, maybe just a history of it, but enough of it to make you think twice about approaching him carelessly. He had a service dog, a big friendly Labrador named Montana who helped him negotiate his chair in restaurants and in other crowded spots. Murph and I spent a fair amount of time just talking, no cameras. I'd driven out with my own dog Scoop, an ancient Pug on his last legs with kidney failure but still delighted to be alive, and Scoop found a new friend in Montana.

But in my time with Murph I didn't hear any anger at all, just the story of a guy who'd had his share of life's ups and downs and who on this beautiful day was enjoying the heck out of one of the up days for sure. Murph said yes, he'd been angry in the past. Really angry about a lot of things, starting with the helicopter accident three decades earlier that ended his active service as a Marine and that sent him on a downward spiral marked by lawsuits, a failed marriage, and that damned wheelchair. But when he finally got up in the air and got the gift that soaring gives... on the good days... he found he wasn't just leaving his wheelchair on the ground below, but his anger too.

I said, "So how does it feel, relying only on yourself up there?"

"Hard for me to describe," he said, and then described it. "It makes my heart soar. I know, in the plane flying around, I'm just the same as anybody else."

He laughed, and he had a good laugh, unselfconscious and heartfelt. "You're searching for clouds, watching for birds and planes, and the chair is not a factor. And when you come back in to land, you look down and you see your chair sitting there on the side of the runway and you go, 'I don't need you!' And it feels great!"

Later we listened to his voice from the cockpit. "Whoooooo, baby!" he shouted, "here we go... we're havin' lots of lift... i'm havin' a helluva time back here!" No one listening to the pure joy in his voice would doubt that.

We had a full day of it, small cameras mounted on the wing and in the cockpit and the big camera aiming up from the ground as Footch and his Freedom's Wings friends made new friends... some for the long haul, it seemed clear... by towing them up into the sunlit skies and riding the autumn breezes above the gorgeous Pennsylvania foliage, and letting their guests know that it was all available to them too, if they wanted it.

I went up for one flight, and was reminded of how enjoyable an experience soaring is; and our producer Joo Lee had her maiden glider flight too, and except for a few bounces and tight turns gave it her own thumbs up. The sun went down over a barbecue of hot dogs and brats, and beer and laughter and fellowship, next to a hangar full of a half-dozen gliders that were parked close to each other, motionless of course, but just for awhile.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

This is being thumb-typed on my Blackberry as we drive through a residential neighborhood in San Diego. It smells like a fireplace. Everywhere. I've resorted to wearing a mask to breathe. The smoke is one thing, but the ash in the air is downright dangerous. This morning we encountered a woman who watched her home burn down on television. She appeared to be in shock -- not quite knowing what to feel. Other residents wait for an escort up the hill to their property, not knowing what they'll find when they round the final turn on the road nearing home.

The police are still patient (even detectives are working patrol shifts and helping watch neighborhoods), and in front of a nearby strip mall, in the blazing sun, there are 25 firefighters sound asleep on the grass wearing their full gear, getting a little rest while they can.

It's a sad, smoky and unsure place. I'm watching a fire on a hillside as I type this: white smoke (someone's put water on the fire) has now given way to black smoke (the fire has re-generated), and beneath it sits the lake where the choppers hover low to fill their tanks with water. We've got it all covered -- we're living in various rental cars, dividing up the territory -- and we'll have complete coverage for you on tonight's broadcast. Please join us.

State of California: http://www.ca.gov/CountyFireInfo.html

KNBC-TV, Los Angeles: http://www.knbc.com/index.html

KSND-TV, San Diego: http://www.knbc.com/index.html

msnbc.com: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21431682/

Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/

San Diego Union-Tribune: http://www.signonsandiego.com/

Malibu Times: http://www.malibutimes.com/

By Mara Schiavocampo, NBC Nightly News digital correspondent

Imagine your boss calls you into work on a Sunday. Now imagine he asks you to stay until Tuesday, without a break. No shower, no sit-down meals, no sleeping in your bed. You might agree to it, but my guess is you wouldn't be happy about it.

I just spent the day with a group of California firefighters at a command center in Santa Clarita who have been battling wildfires around the clock since Sunday. You can view my report here. As a whole, they reminded me of college kids cramming for final: exhausted but jovial. Some were drinking coffee and energy drinks. Many had bloodshot "I-haven't-selpt-for-days" eyes. A few sported days-old stubble. But all of them - every last one I spoke with - were friendly and cheerful.

We can all agree that firefighters are remarkable. They fall into that small category of things that are universally loved, like puppies and apple pie. After all, they risk their lives for ours. But today I have a newfound respect for them. They don't just respond to duty, they do it with a smile.

One group I spoke to didn't want to be interviewed on camera or give their names. They were afraid their bosses would get in trouble for not forcing them to take breaks. Of the dozens of firefighters I saw today, these guys looked the worst. They were just beat. When I found them they were getting their first break in about 40 hours. But they couldn't relax completely because they were still on call. If needed, they would have to mobilize in minutes. But they were joking around with each other and with me. They clearly enjoy the camaraderie. And I got the sense that they genuinely like to help others.

I asked one firefighter how he was feeling, given the long hours. He answered that while it was tough, one of the highlights was spending time with his firefighter buddies. With friends like these, I can see why.