Sunday comments open.

January 12, 2025

The Comment section is open on Sunday, January 12, 2025.

The winds have shifted in Los Angeles. As a result, the area where I live is not currently under threat—but new areas of LA are in danger (on the West Side and Topanga Canyon).

For much of the day, thick smoke was visible from the floor of the San Fernando Valley (see two photos below). But by 7:00 p.m., the ominous orange glow no longer illuminated the plumes. The sense of relief was powerful.

I set up my telescope for the first time in a week and captured the image of M78, a nebula located 1,350 light years from Earth. M78 has a radius of 5 light years.

The image below shows the scale of the smoke plumes over the San Fernando Valley. Notice the cross at the bottom right of the image. A tiny speck is silhouetted against the smoke at the 11:00 o’clock position relative to the cross (midway up the photo). That speck is a small plane scouting the way for a super-tanker to make a water drop.

The image below shows two helicopters returning to the Encino Reservoir to refill their water tanks. About a dozen helicopters flew missions the entire day to prevent the fire from dropping into the San Fernando Valley. The effort was successful.

Despite the successes on Saturday, we cannot forget the thousands who have lost their homes and the hundreds of thousands who have been forced out of their homes due to evacuation orders. The emergency is not over.

Indeed, as I write on Saturday evening, our windows and doors rattle regularly as Chinook helicopters pass overhead as they return to Van Nuys airport for fuel. The efforts to politicize a tragedy that is still unfolding are reprehensible.

Talk to you tomorrow!