LA Wildfire - Mt Wilson

[Ric Werme]

> yes, its not our area, but .... significant to any broadcast people.

> huge wildfire that atarted Aug 29, apparently near Glendale CA,
> and is now threatening TV sites on Mt Wildson.
> Scary, thinking the  possible station transmitter losses,

The transmitters are likely more replacable than the many telescopes
on Mt Wilson.

A backfire likely took out the web cam's network comm line, the last
photo is still up at http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/towercam.htm and
shows the radio and TV towers amongst the smoke.

A running commentary of events there yesterday is at (relocated)
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/fire.php .  The importance of the
observatory and its facilities as a "base" of operations likely
benefits protecting the transmitters.

>From that site on Tuesday, 7:21 pm PDT:

  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. He flew up to the mountain yesterday, was delighted with what he
  found and knew they could achieve success here. There are now 150 fire
  fighters on Mount Wilson.

Perversely, there's a solar observatory that is one of several that tracks
sunspots, and we were on the verge of the first spotless month since
1913 (or 2008, depending on who counts) and breaking the 52 day spotless
streak (depending on that 2008 month).  Even more perversely, a pair
of sunspecks showed up on Aug 31 (US time) and Sep 1 (european time)!