From dramatic cell phone camera images of flames as they choked off neighborhood escape routes to chilling online narratives of evacuation, citizen journalists covering the wildfires in California this week gave new meaning to the concept of reporting a natural disaster from the ground up.

"I'm not knocking what we do in the mainstream media, but citizens are bringing the highly personal, close-up nature of these fires home to viewers in a way that traditional reporting just doesn't do," said Nancy Lane, senior vice president/editorial at CNN.

Inside Despite devastation, flames have killed only one. PG 3a