Brent Buffington of the Cassini navigation team snapped this shot from the Devil's Gate Dam around 2:00 a.m. on August 29, as the fire was near its closest approach to JPL.

JPL Under Fire

Fueled by triple-digit temperatures and single-digit humidity, the Station Fire has engulfed more than 160,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Pasadena since being ignited by arson on the afternoon of August 26. The fire, which continued to smolder in some inaccessible canyons well into October, is the largest in the recorded history of Los Angeles County, and the 10th biggest wildfire in California since 1933. The fire killed two firefighters, injured 22 people, destroyed more than 200 buildings and homes, and cost about $90 million. Ash from the blaze fell as far away as Las Vegas, and the Los Angeles area was blanketed in a suffocating haze for weeks.

In addition to the hundreds of homes evacuated from Tujunga to Altadena, Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was closed during the last weekend of August when the inferno came within 0.2 kilometers of the Lab's northern edge. Only skeleton crews essential to keeping the Lab going and our far-flung fleet of spacecraft flying were allowed to report for work.

The flames also advanced up the slopes of Mount Wilson, overlooking Pasadena and home to crucial communication towers—including nearly all the local TV and many radio stations—that serve the Los Angeles region. Sharing the summit is the Mount Wilson Observatory, founded in 1904 by Caltech's George Ellery Hale. As the tool with which Edwin Hubble discovered the expanding universe, the 100-inch Hooker Telescope is arguably one of the most important scientific instruments in history. Over 100 firefighters from across California successfully defended the observatory and the antennas, dropping fire retardant from helicopters and setting backfires on the observatory grounds.

The extent of the burned area (dark gray) as of September 6. This image was taken by Terra's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and run jointly with JPL.

While the fire was burning within sight of JPL, JPL instruments on board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites were watching the fire from space. These satellites' polar orbits bring them back over the same piece of real estate every few days, allowing scientists to track all manner of global changes on a local or regional level. —MW

The fire's carbon monoxide plume, seen by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the Aqua satellite, eventually extended across the U.S.

Terra's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) captured this perspective view of white, puffy pyrocumulus clouds rising above the smoke plumes drifting across the Mojave Desert. This shot was taken at an off-vertical angle of 46 degrees and spans a width of almost 250 kilometers.