“Just when I thought the danger was over \u2014 it wasn’t,” the observatory’s executive director said.<\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/200921-mt-wilson-observatory-jm-1701_6916634affc7dba281ea8d07c4864c33.fit-2000w.jpg\")
Firefighters walk up a hill while working the Bobcat Fire at Mount Wilson Observatory in Angeles National Forest, Calif., on Thursday.Frederic J. Brown \/ AFP – Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n
By Tim Stelloh
\nNBC<\/p>\n
Dozens of firefighters were battling small blazes that flared up overnight around a historic observatory in Southern California on Monday as the state approached nearly 4 million acres burned in a record wildfire season.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the team responding to the Bobcat Fire, Larry Smith, said adverse winds overnight whipped up the fires days after the blaze came within\u00a0500 feet of Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains<\/a>.<\/p>\nEight hand crews and three strike teams totaling more than 150 firefighters were defending the area Monday, Smith said.<\/p>\n
Thomas Meneghini, Mount Wilson Observatory’s executive director,\u00a0told the Los Angeles Times on Monday<\/a>: “Just when I thought the danger was over \u2014 it wasn’t.”<\/p>\nSmith said the observatory wasn’t threatened, but the flare-ups pointed to the\u00a0difficulties firefighters have faced containing a blaze<\/a>\u00a0that expanded by 6,000 acres overnight.<\/p>\nThe fire \u2014 ignited on Sept. 6 and fueled by triple-digit heat, changing winds and dry brush \u2014 had burned through more than 105,000 acres north of Los Angeles by Monday afternoon. It was 15 percent contained,\u00a0according to the fire-reporting site InciWeb<\/a>.<\/p>\nAbout 4,000 people remained under evacuation orders in the region, Smith said, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office\u00a0issued a slate of new evacuation warnings<\/a>\u00a0Monday.<\/p>\nIn a letter Friday, the chairman of Mount Wilson’s board of trustees, Sam Hale, said firefighters had declared the facility safe after an “extremely stressful week.”<\/p>\n
“It was a real nail biter right to the end,” he said.<\/p>\n
The firefighters used “strategic firing” \u2014 backfires that act as barriers against advancing flames \u2014 to protect the observatory, which was founded in 1904 and is home to some of the most important astronomical discoveries of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
“We owe our very existence to the firefighters on the ground and the helicopter pilots,” Hale said. “They are our heroes.”<\/p>\n
Firefighters walk up a hill while working the Bobcat Fire at Mount Wilson Observatory in Angeles National Forest, Calif., on Thursday.Frederic J. Brown \/ AFP – Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n
By Tim Stelloh
\nNBC<\/p>\n
Dozens of firefighters were battling small blazes that flared up overnight around a historic observatory in Southern California on Monday as the state approached nearly 4 million acres burned in a record wildfire season.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the team responding to the Bobcat Fire, Larry Smith, said adverse winds overnight whipped up the fires days after the blaze came within\u00a0500 feet of Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains<\/a>.<\/p>\n Eight hand crews and three strike teams totaling more than 150 firefighters were defending the area Monday, Smith said.<\/p>\n Thomas Meneghini, Mount Wilson Observatory’s executive director,\u00a0told the Los Angeles Times on Monday<\/a>: “Just when I thought the danger was over \u2014 it wasn’t.”<\/p>\n Smith said the observatory wasn’t threatened, but the flare-ups pointed to the\u00a0difficulties firefighters have faced containing a blaze<\/a>\u00a0that expanded by 6,000 acres overnight.<\/p>\n The fire \u2014 ignited on Sept. 6 and fueled by triple-digit heat, changing winds and dry brush \u2014 had burned through more than 105,000 acres north of Los Angeles by Monday afternoon. It was 15 percent contained,\u00a0according to the fire-reporting site InciWeb<\/a>.<\/p>\n About 4,000 people remained under evacuation orders in the region, Smith said, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office\u00a0issued a slate of new evacuation warnings<\/a>\u00a0Monday.<\/p>\n In a letter Friday, the chairman of Mount Wilson’s board of trustees, Sam Hale, said firefighters had declared the facility safe after an “extremely stressful week.”<\/p>\n “It was a real nail biter right to the end,” he said.<\/p>\n The firefighters used “strategic firing” \u2014 backfires that act as barriers against advancing flames \u2014 to protect the observatory, which was founded in 1904 and is home to some of the most important astronomical discoveries of the 20th century.<\/p>\n “We owe our very existence to the firefighters on the ground and the helicopter pilots,” Hale said. “They are our heroes.”<\/p>\n