Firefighters Protect Historic Mt. Wilson Observatory From Eaton Fire
The Eaton fire, raging uncontained to the northeast of Los Angeles, raced up Mount Wilson on Thursday, at one point threatening the historic Mount Wilson observatory and a host of antennas and transmitters used for communications and local television broadcasts.
The fire, near Pasadena and Altadena, had burned through more than 13,600 acres and destroyed thousands of structures by Thursday evening, according to the authorities in California.
“The fire is making a run toward the historic Mount Wilson area,” Robert Luna, the Los Angeles County Sheriff, said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
Footage from local news stations and webcams showed the Eaton fire going up Mount Wilson as smoke billowed across the sky.
The Mount Wilson Observatory said on social media around noon that it had lost power, and that firefighters were on its grounds.
The Mount Wilson Observatory is an important site in the history of modern astronomy. With the famous Hooker telescope, early 20th century astronomers made key observations about the Milky Way and deduced that the universe was expanding.
Around 120 firefighters were deployed to Mount Wilson to fight the blaze, and were aided by water drops from helicopters, said Don Fregulia, an operations sections chief with an interagency emergency management team in California.
“We’re feeling good about what we have to do up there tonight to keep that site secure,” Mr. Fregulia said, adding that the authorities expect “in the next 24 hours to have that contained.”
There had been no reports of damage to infrastructure or the observatory as of Thursday evening, Mr. Fregulia said.
The Mount Wilson Observatory said later Thursday evening that the nearby fire appeared to be under control.
“Our core crew at the Observatory are all safe. Maybe exhausted, but they can sleep through the night now,” said Dan Kohne, the observatory’s chief operating officer, adding that they anticipated that power would be restored on Friday.
This is not the first time that the observatory, which sits on a ridge overlooking Pasadena, has come under threat. The Bobcat fire in 2020 (not 2018, as an earlier version of this item said) came within a few hundred of its telescope domes.
