Slashdot Mirror
Mount Wilson Observatory In Danger From L.A. Fire
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."
I hope they can protect it! It would be a great tragedy to lose the observatory. Its beautiful architecture, unique location and accessibility to the public makes it a real treasure.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
There is a link to a blog on the Webcam page:
http://joy.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/fire.php
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.
The observatory's going to be fine 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.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Wilson ? Wiiiiiiilsooooon !
</cast away>
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Gee, that explains all the taco stands.
Table-ized A.I.
"I can see the Big Bang! We finally got enough power to peer back in time and....what? fire? hill? Daaaah Shit!"
Table-ized A.I.
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 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.
I can see the fnords!
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
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
I thought they'd see it coming.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
About 34 hours before the cam went offline, I decided to start grabbing the images for a time lapse in case it did go dead. I put it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-H6awKq9AA
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.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"But it is in the realm of possibility."
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.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
In case you haven't noticed, the observatory is at the top of a steep, rugged mountain. Not only would what you suggest be very difficult, it would be useless. You see, fires move up hills very easily, because heat rises. And, of course, burning embers have been known to jump much larger gaps than a mere 50 meters, making the "firebreak" useless.
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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.
Taxpayers are in no mood to fund that sort of effort.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm under the impression that both the police and fire departments have had layoffs as part of the state's budget cuts, in an attempt to keep the government quasi-solvent during its' current financial crisis.
In "The Trap" (or was is "The Century Of Self"?) BBC documentarian Adam Curtis mentions the phenomenon of John Q. Citizen groaning about taxes, electing a man like Reagan as president, then a couple of years later groaning about the decaying conditions of infrastructure, education, law enforcement, etc, not making the connection between his vote and the consequences. Now, instead of going into a diatribe about fickle and myopic masses unable to wisely govern themselves, I'll just state a fact: you get what you pay for, including a weakened firefighting force.
Unfortunately, I know exactly what these people are going through, I get knots in my stomach every time this makes the news. I live in Baja, and during a Santa Ana event on November 23, 1999 (I'll never forget the date, it was a Tuesday), I woke up to the roar of a brush fire in the canyon behind my rented house, even though it was already daylight, the sun was blocked out by smoke and an orange glow danced in darkness through the curtains, a sight I do not wish on anybody. In an instant I bolted out of bed, made way through rooms thick with smoke like a indoor fog, evacuated my crying cats (a mother and five kittens) and ran barefoot through rocks and shrubs to a neighbor's house to phone the fire department, who assured they were on the way.
Here's the thing, a PVC water pipe that feeds the colony runs through the back of the house, and as it's only turned on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (we're not on the grid), the pipe was dry. This particular morning, it was also charred to a crisp. When the firemen arrived to another house first, the pump was switched on, and as pressurized cold water hit the pipe behind my house, it cracked on top, sending a huge curtain of water upwards, which was then pushed by the wind towards the roof. My gods (BSG, nod nod, wink wink), it was like a waterfall on all four sides! By the time the firemen finally made it to my place, it had already saved itself. The only casualties were my feet (had to use a cane for about a week and a half) and charred whiskers on the mother cat, but we made it through. To this day, there are scars and burns where the flames licked the structure.
Next morning, with a churning stomach I gazed at a huge cloud of smoke rising from the other side of town, so I was baffled to see the previous day's fire truck slowly approach my house. One of the firemen came up and asked if I'd seen his gloves around, as he'd lost them and they were his only pair. Here they were, losing a crucial hour or more, to find a pair of gloves.
This is what happens when a vital department is underfunded and undermanned.
Since then I've gotten married, every year we hire someone to clear out a perimeter of at least twenty meters of dry brush and dispose of it. Still, sometimes when the dry winds hit, I do suffer from mild episodes of PTSD, which makes sleeping a real challenge for a few days, until the humidity returns.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty