Firefighters save historic California observatory from blaze

Firefighters in Southern California saved the historic Mt. Wilson Observatory from a giant wildfire burning north of Los Angeles, officials said Wednesday.

In a news release, fire officials said that flames at the south end of the roughly 44,000-acre Bobcat Fire had calmed overnight, allowing crews to strengthen containment lines and prevent the blaze from damaging the 116-year-old observatory.

On Tuesday, officials with the U.S. Forest Service said the blaze had been within 500 feet of the facility.

“While there is still much work to be done in southwest and in the northern sections of the fire, your firefighters did incredible work around Mt. Wilson today,” forest officials tweeted late Tuesday.

The observatory sits on a 5,700-foot peak in the Angeles National Forest, a 700,000-acre protected area in the San Gabriel Mountains. The forest is 25 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

The fire, which ignited Sept. 6, was only 3 percent contained on Wednesday.

Heroes don’t wear capes. They wear personal protection equipment (PPE). Firefighters from @MonroviaCA posing in front of the 60-inch telescope. Thank you for all you do!! #BobcatFire pic.twitter.com/IIEYhZoIHU

— Mount Wilson Observatory (@MtWilsonObs) September 16, 2020

“Heroes don’t wear capes,” the observatory tweeted Wednesday. “They wear personal protection equipment.”

The tweet included a photo of a firefighting crew from Monrovia, a city just south the forest, in front of its 60-inch telescope.

Built in 1908, it was the largest operational telescope in the world until a 100-inch instrument was completed at Mt. Wilson nine years later.

The observatory went on to become a seminal site in modern astronomy, the place where Edwin Hubble showed in 1925 that the Milky Way is one of many galaxies. Four years later, Hubble was at Mount Wilson when he confirmed that the universe is still expanding.

The Bobcat Fire is one of 25 major fires in California. A record 3.3 million acres have burned in California this year, and thousands of buildings have been destroyed. Twenty-five people have died, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

In Butte County, where the Camp Fire killed 85 people two years ago in the state’s deadliest wildfire on record — and where 15 have died since a powerful off-shore wind event intensified the North Complex Fire last week — officials reported some progress Tuesday and said that no new humans were found.

But the communities of Feather Falls, Berry Creek and Brush Creek suffered “substantial” damage, and hundreds of homes have been destroyed, the officials said.