Mount Wilson Observatory is located high in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena in Los Angeles County. Its 100-inch Hooker Telescope was the largest in the world for over thirty years. It's where Edwin Hubble made the observations that changed pur view of the Universe. He showed that the Milky Way wasn't the whole Universe by showing that the "Andromeda nebula" was a distant galaxy, not part of the Milky Way.
In September the Bobcat Fire - one of the biggest in Los Angeles history - was headed for Mount Wilson. It
burned within 500 ft of the observatory where firefighters checked it. Overall, the fire burned over 100,000 acres.
In 2009, the observatory was threatened by wildfire and escaped with smoke damage. Since then they have prepared for the California’s yearly wildfire season. Last year, they cut trees, installed new high-flow hydrants, and topped off the 530,000-gallon water reservoir, which supplies 33 hydrants across the site and is supported by an additional 270,000-gallon water tank just outside the main gate.