Since early January, wildfires have ravaged the greater Los Angeles area, killing at least 27 people and causing at least $250 billion in damage. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes to escape the fires, and many have found they have no place to return to. Recovery, especially for the region’s most vulnerable, will take years.
Among those who lost homes are more than 210 people who work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., the NASA-funded facility that helped create some of humanity’s most famous telescopes and spacecraft. That’s about 4% of its approximately 5,500 staff members, and includes JPL’s deputy director, Leslie Livesay.
“Collectively, we’re heartbroken at the loss, but heart-warmed by how the community is coming together to support one another.”
More than 100 additional people, including JPL director Laurie Leshin, are experiencing long-term displacement after their neighborhoods and the surrounding infrastructure were destroyed. About 20% of the lab’s workforce evacuated from their homes, and many are not yet allowed to return home.
“Collectively, we’re heartbroken at the loss, but heart-warmed by how the community is coming together to support one another,” Leshin told Eos.
As the threat of the fires encroached on the campus, JPL closed its doors on 8 January to all but emergency response personnel. Following its long-standing fire protocols, the lab has kept its hillside campus clear of brush and other potential fuel for a fire, created firebreaks, maintained an on-site fire department, and kept close track of the materials and chemicals in all lab spaces.
“It’s an industrial site, and so we have to make sure that we understand what we’ve got and make sure it’s safely protected,” Leshin said.
JPL’s campus is situated right where the Eaton Fire was projected to burn, and so its on-site fire department worked to not only protect the lab itself but also help contain one flank of the fire. The lab has been able to support local firefighting efforts, too, with the watering station atop one of its hills. Firefighting helicopters have regularly landed at JPL to refill with water to dump on the fire.
The lab also flew NASA’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-3 (AVIRIS-3) on planes above the burned area to help assess the scope and scale of the damage.
“We were all working to help keep our community safe,” Leshin said.
Science Goes On
JPL currently runs or contributes to 40 active missions. All communications and data relayed to and from the missions run through the Deep Space Network (DSN), which JPL runs on-site in its mission operations center. That, too, needed to be evacuated.
“We have had people in our mission operations center 24/7, 365, since 1963, and this is the first time we pulled out of that building,” Leshin said. Following their contingency plan, they moved DSN operations up to their backup site at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in central California.
Missions did not lose any data or suffer any significant loss of operations.
“We practice it twice a year, but we’ve never had to do it,” Leshin said.
Leshin said that missions did not lose any data or suffer any significant loss of operations. Some missions, like the Mars rovers, have backup commands in place in the event they lose communications with Earth. The rovers remained stationary for a few days and collected some passive data such as wind, pressure, and temperature observations, which were sent back to Earth.
“In the midst of being displaced from their homes and trying to make sure everyone was safe, the team also kept all the missions going,” Leshin said. “That’s a heroic story for the science community.”
JPL is involved with several missions that are launching in the next 3 months, though none of the technology or systems related to those missions were at the lab at the time of the fires, Leshin explained. Some systems, such as those integrated into the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission, had already been shipped to BAE Systems in Boulder, Colo. Components aboard the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission have been shipped to India.
Regaining Some Normalcy
As of 22 January, the Palisades Fire is 68% contained and the Eaton Fire is 91% contained. Emergency managers continue to monitor weather and wind conditions with the hope of preventing a resurgence.
“For people whose houses are lost, who don’t have lots of other places to go, they can come to the lab.”
JPL’s campus did not sustain any major fire damage. Hurricane-speed winds damaged the roofs of 10 buildings, and there is still debris to clear away. JPL was back in operation on 21 January, and the mission operations center is fully staffed once again. Essential personnel resumed working on-site, though all staff were encouraged to work remotely until 28 January, at which point they will work on-site as their personal situations allow, Leshin said.
JPL and its university partner, the California Institute of Technology, have arranged a relief fund for their staff who have been affected by the fires. So far it has raised more than $2.5 million. JPL is also working with a trauma team to provide support to first responders and staff.
“For people whose houses are lost, who don’t have lots of other places to go, they can come to the lab,” Leshin said. “I have to tell you, I did it myself last week, and being in a familiar environment felt really good. I think there is something about being grounded in a routine that is really helpful at this time.”
—Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@AstroKimCartier), Staff Writer