Toasted wires - hi-lo beam PLEASE HELP!

I was driving to work today and all of a sudden i started to smell something burning and then before I knew it the jeep was full of smoke. Pulled over right away to shut everything off and the burning went away. Had to make it to work so i started it back up with messed up headlights and turn signals didn't work. After it cooled off the turn signals started to work again and had hi-beam headlights. Later looked it over and found that a fuse was blown (flashers/brakelights) replaced fuse but that just kept the headlights on permanently and couldn't turn them off. Flashers worked with headlights on and no fuse for them (assuming they were getting power from melted wire)
Anyways the wire that goes from the hi lo headlight clicker was fried almost down to bare wire all the way to the headlights. Removed what I could of the wire. Removed dash/lower dash/fuse box now its just a big mess. The switch for hi lo beam on the steering column will not click back and forth for some reason. It is supposed to "click" without power right?? I think it broke the switch too.
Any ideas what caused this?
Can you reccomend a repair place to go to? Just any mechanic? Electronic specialist? This is gonna cost me isn't it...

BTW: its an 87 Laredo with a lot of power options. (not good)

Sounds like you developed a short from a wear point on the wiring insulation, which lead to high current flow and melted wires. You have to go over the circuits involved to find both all the damage and to find the original source of the problem (or replacement wires will burn up too!). If you can't find a source, then it is probably one of the melted sections that started it all. You have power finding a route to ground through the the high beams- messed up insulation is letting power flow across circuits. I would grab a wiring diagram for my year and start following wires for the affected circuits. New sections can be solidly twisted together, the soldered (electronics solder, not the acid core stuff), then cover with shrink wrap (which has to go on the wire FIRST). Do a search for "wiring diagram", there was a post to a full wiring diagram for several years. I printed one for my year (large paper 11x17 makes it easier to read).

Thanks. I'll search for a wiring diagram for future reference but I think I'm pretty much covored except for a hi/low beam switch that I'm going to check for at a junkyard tommorow. All of my lights are working now except low beam headlights! Took me 8+ hours including yesterday of rewiring and tearing stuff apart. Now i have to pack all of the wiring away and get it secured right. I'm also going to add an inline fuse to the wire that went bad (wasn't routed through the fusebox unfortunatly) I'll keep posted after i find out if its just that one switch I need...

The '87 should have a circuit breaker built into the headlight switch. (The ON/OFF switch on the dash, not the hi/low dimmer stalk). If things got hot enough to fry the wiring, that circuit breaker must have failed. Headlight switches aren't horribly expensive -- I suggest you include a new one in the repair protocol.