dude I’ve never seen a fire so large and devastating. I was listening to the evening news and they said there is like 20 television stations antennas up there.
That’s because there has been no fuels management in the Angeles National Forest for, oh, 30 to 40 years. There’s a huge build-up of scrub, understory and dead trees waiting for the right conditions to light it up.
I used to go up to Mt. Wilson on weekends in the mid-80’s. Even then, I was amazed that they allowed the trees to get so large, so close to that much valuable equipment. Were I running the show, I would have had the top of that mountain denuded for at least 200 yards around that entire site in every direction, for personnel safety if for no other reason. A fire starting on the slopes below could trap people up there with no way out very easily.
As bad as the situation is on Mt. Wilson, the situation on Mt. Harvard (just south of Mt. Wilson) is even worse, with more fuel coming right up to the electronics sites.
No Oprah for Maxine’s Welfare Hammock? RACIST! Quick, we need a few $B from the Feds to hook them all up to satellite TV.