California Wildfires
The fires near Los Angeles are getting close to Mount Wilson.
There is a major (and historic) Observatory there, there are also the antennas for 22 LA Television stations, 25 FM Radio stations plus all of the police, fire, emergency and public utility units.
From the
LA Times:
Flames from Station fire move within 2 miles of Mt. Wilson
The Station fire burned within 2 miles of Mt. Wilson today, sending smoke toward its century-old observatory as well as communications towers that house transmitters for every major television station in Los Angeles.
[Updated at 5:40 p.m.: Officials now say the fire is moving rapidly toward Mt. Wilson and its landmark observatory.]
The top of the 5,712-foot mountain, which sits above Altadena, is home to multimillion-dollar astronomy projects for UCLA, USC and UC Berkeley. Georgia State University also operates a $20-million facility and a powerful telescope array at the Mt. Wilson Solar Observatory.
�A lot of people think of an observatory as one dome, but Mt. Wilson Observatory is actually a 40-acre tract of land with 50 to 60 buildings on it,� said Dr. Harold McAlister, director of the nonprofit Mt. Wilson Institute, which runs the observatory. �None of that stuff is portable, and to move telescopes out of there takes many weeks. We�re strictly at the mercy of nature and the great competence of the firefighters.�
The
Mt. Wilson Observatory has frequent postings as well.
There is a very good shelter-in-place facility at the Observatory so anyone remaining should be just fine.
Posted by DaveH at August 30, 2009 11:24 PM