Mount Wilson Observatory In Danger From L.A. Fire 125
An anonymous reader writes "Mount Wilson is in danger from the Station fire burning near L.A. Their servers have gone offline, but there's a temporary mirror cam. It doesn't look good. Picture twenty-four on the L.A. Times photo gallery shows the observatory from the air. If anyone has any inside news on the condition of the facility, I'm sure there are lots of people on Slashdot who would love to hear it."
Sounds like it's safe according to this blog (Score:5, Informative)
There is a link to a blog on the Webcam page:
http://joy.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/fire.php [gsu.edu]
Chief Powers expressed his absolute confidence that they will save the Observatory. He said that while it may have appeared over the last day or so that the Observatory was being neglected, that they never lost sight of the importance of Mount Wilson's preservation and it is now their highest priority.
Don't worry (Score:5, Informative)
The observatory's going to be fine [gsu.edu] according to some of the people who work there.
I guess there's no such thing as a 100% guarantee, but the observatory appears to be very well protected.
Watching it from home (Score:5, Informative)
I live in Altadena and have a good view of Mt Wilson. Most of the flames are on the North side of the ridge today, and are therefore beyond line of sight. Smoke completely obscures the mountains in the morning hours as well. The press has been reporting for two days now that the fire was "hours away" from the observatory, but the ground crews and helicopters have been successful in protecting it and the antenna farm.
This afternoon, however, we were treated to the impressive sight of a Martin JRM Mars [wikipedia.org] aerial water tanker dropping 7,000 gallons of water at a pop on the Mt. Wilson blazes, and seeing the black smoke turn to white steam. Better images here (scroll down 1/3rd of the page).
I'm confident that the firefighters will be able to prevent any serious damage to the assets on Mt. Wilson, both scientific and commercial. The worst appears to be over. [pasadenastarnews.com]
Map; thoughts from Pasadena resident (Score:5, Informative)
The LA Times has been maintaining a Google Map showing the fire perimeter, location of landmarks like Mt. Wilson (it's the volcano shape on the lower-right side of the fire perimeter), and the direction the fire's been spreading. It's the best way I've found to quickly get an idea of what's going on:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117631292961056724014.0004720e21d9cded17ce4 [google.com]
I've been living in Pasadena for a while, and this has been quite an interesting experience. My brother just moved out here from Florida, and he arrived at our house the other night telling me how huge the fires on the mountain looked. I thought to myself, "Oh, he's just impressed because he's never seen this sort of thing before" -- I've seen wildfires on the mountains north of here in the past, and even if they cover a huge amount of area they still look fairly small from ~13 miles away. I then walked to the middle of our street where I could get a view of the mountains, and then exclaimed, "Holy crap, the mountain's on fire!" That was shit was insane.
Friends of mine have had to evacuate already, the air perpetually smells like smoke, and a lot of people are wearing breathing masks. This is crazy. I really hope the historic Mt. Wilson observatory can be saved, and that the loss of life/property can be minimized.
If you haven't seen it yet, I'd suggest the wikipedia article for the fire, which has things like satellite photos of the fire and more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2009_California_wildfires [wikipedia.org]
Re:Don't worry (Score:2, Informative)
As someone that has experienced 3 california wild fires, I can tell you that the media exaggerates the threat to no end. I would be watching TV and they would have maps showing my entire neighborhood on fire. The reality is that when the fire gets to the houses, the firefighters are well trained and well prepared and can save the large majority of them. Nobody is going to let a multimillion dollar observatory burn down.
Re:Don't worry (Score:5, Informative)
I used to live out there, and loved the drive [google.com] to the observatory [google.com]. Well, it's a treacherous and exhausting drive, but still fun especially if you have a performance car. I used to joke that the speed limits aren't there as a suggestion. They're just about as fast as you can go and survive. :) It's all fun and games until you fall off a cliff, which happens fairly regularly.
From what I recall, they do have provisions to protect the observatory equipment inside the building (like, covering the lenses), so I'd suspect they'll be ok.
For those who haven't been out there, which I would guess would be the majority of readers, the whole area is heavily forested in very steep mountains, so in the dry season, it's easy to presume it could be easily engulfed by the seasonal wildfires. The mountains make it damned near impossible for teams to fight the fires. The idea of "cut a fire break, and send some trucks out to fight it" are out. I have seen the reports of burning the surrounding area to prevent the hot fire from getting too close, and repeated drenching by aircraft, which is their best bet. There is no option of "it won't come here". If the fire gets close enough, it'll be a nightmare to suppress.
Good luck guys, you'll need it. Hopefully I'll get out there again someday, and the facility will still exist.
Re:Sounds like it's safe according to this blog (Score:2, Informative)
The photo number in the header is wrong.
It's photo 24.http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-0826-morris-fire-pictures,0,2039975.photogallery/ [latimes.com]
Mod Parent Informative (Score:4, Informative)
Parent's 100% accurate. I spent lots of time mountain biking up there many (15??) years ago and know the destination well.
The priority goes to not only the observatory, but the *many* radio and television antennas up there that service the most densely populated parts of L.A. When we used to stop there before descending on some beautiful single track, the grounds were very well kept. Hopefully that hasn't changed too much.
The steepness of the San Gabriel mountains along the south-facing sides just cannot be described. There's just no way to reasonably manage the fuel loads beyond a small perimeter around the top of Mt. Wilson. Taxpayers are in no mood to fund that sort of effort.
Hopefully, they've been managing the area as well as I remember.
Re:Sounds like it's safe according to this blog (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you plan on glassing the whole area to ensure nothing grows back, sometimes you can't just 'remove the fuel'.
Re:Probably will be fine. (Score:4, Informative)
The wind is the main factor in a fire like this. The fire front in Australia's Black saturday fires was running at 120 km/h. Embers were causing spot fires 20km away. It was a true firestorm in the sense that it made it's own weather.
Re:Mount Stromlo all over again (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt it.
Mount Wilson doesn't just hold the observatory but also transmission towers for all of the major broadcast TV stations in Los Angeles, as well as a majority of the radio stations, along with transmission towers for a large percentage of emergency responder communications and commercial transmission, such as trucking logistics. Mount Wilson is a major asset, and the fire crews have been preparing the area for several days in order to save the area.
Nothing in life is guaranteed, but in the case of Mount Wilson, it's clear they've been concentrating as much effort saving the complex as they have in making sure the fires don't reach the residential communities in La Canada/Flintridge and La Crescenta.
Inside info from the ex-telescope maintainer (Score:4, Informative)
My brother-in-law used to be the maintainer for the telescopes up there several years ago, and is up there right now with the firefighting crews (has been for a few days now). The mountain has been in danger several times but firefighters are there in full force (well, 150 is the number I hear). From his perspective I've been getting mixed information - a lot of the news has come in via what people up there see, and what they see isn't always what's really happening (we heard an entire Christian camp up there was completely burned down, but it's actually just fine!).
A lot of the media here is hyping up the 20+ communications towers at the top of the mountain being in danger, and just started talking about the observatory recently (running out of things to talk about after days and days of coverage, I guess). It is a critical communications point, but so far between the flame retardant, back burn (?) fires started now to prevent areas from burning in the immediate future, actual firefighters and planes/helicopters dropping water/retardant, it's looking really good. The winds have died down as well which is helping quite a bit. I'm currently in Palmdale which is a bit north, and the other day it was "snowing" ashes!
One guy close to the action on the news today downgraded the fire from "angry" to "cranky" - good to hear for all of us still riding this out.
Re:Not the observatory! (Score:3, Informative)