Wildfire, From The Inside

The webcam at Mt. Wilson, embedded with the dense farm of communications equipment that overlooks Los Angeles, gives the world a front row seat for the wildfire that has been threatening the area's northern suburbs since last week.

When we visited the observatories at Mt. Wilson in 1995 when Cheryl was working under a JPL grant for math teachers, the guide showed us a small cabin that had been used for decades by the caretakers of the observatory properties. The cabin had metal shutters, which we were told were necessary in the old days to survive the occasional fires that swept up the mountain. The personnel would barricade themselves inside the fireproof building and wait for the fire to blow itself out. Modern firefighting techniques had prevented fires in that area for a half-century, though. The guide told us that tire prevention is a mixed blessing in wilderness areas. Without the fires, certain plants do not germinate, unhealthy old growth is not cleared out, and new growth becomes overgrown ... leading to extreme fire danger. Nature will get its way eventually.