A couple of days ago I began to follow the Bobcat fire in the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County, California. The fire is threatening nearby foothill communities. As I write this, the fire has burned 44,393 acres. While some mandatory evacuation orders have been lifted, allowing residents to return, other mandatory evacuation orders and evacuation warnings remain in place. I began following the fire through the Bobcat Inciweb pages, the Angeles National Forest facebook page as well as some media outlets, see for example this KABC article (September 16th) or this KCBS report (September 14th) or this September 15th article from Pasadena Now. Yesterday I learned that the flames came within 500 feet of the observatory. Tankers and helicopters made strategic drops to help the firefighters on the ground fight the fire on Mt. Wilson and save the historic observatory as well as vital communications and electric infrastructure. I was very interested to see that a portable container was set up on Mt. Wilson to allow the LA Count Firehawk to dip and drop on Mt. Wilson.
See this September 15th twitter post from the LA County Fire Air Ops retweeted by the Mt. Wilson Observatory, you will have to click on the link to see the photo of the Firehawk dipping on Mt. Wilson
Today, @LACoFireAirOps set up a mobile water reload container in the Mount Wilson parking lot. With support from a @Cal_OES fire engine, one of our brand new S70i Firehawk helicopters helped protect @MtWilsonObs & other critical infrastructure from the advancing #BobcatFire. pic.twitter.com/sSufOOKqOI
— LACoFireAirOps (@LACoFireAirOps) September 16, 2020
Alternatively, the same photo is included in the following Facebook post from the LA County. The link to full post where you may read about the evacuation orders and see the 3-D photo (very cool) may be found here.
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