NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab still 'untouched' by raging LA fires

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"But our community has been very seriously impacted, with over 150 JPLers who have lost their homes and many more displaced."

a handful of white and tan buildings, one with a large blue nasa logo, sit in the foothills of mountains.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is a research and development lab federally funded by NASA and managed by Caltech. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has weathered the firestorm so far.

The raging Eaton fire has devastated Altadena and other neighborhoods at the feet of the San Gabriel Mountains just north of Los Angeles. However, firefighters have managed to keep the flames away from JPL, NASA's lead center for planetary exploration, which lies just to the west.

"UPDATE: @NASAJPL is untouched by fire due to the brave dedication of our first responders. But our community has been very seriously impacted, with over 150 JPLers who have lost their homes and many more displaced," JPL Director Laurie Leshin said via X today (Jan. 10).

Leshin's X post included a link to a disaster-relief fundraising site devoted to helping those JPL folks, as well as people based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which manages the center for NASA.

"Significant devastation in our community. 1,000 still evacuated. More than 150 lost homes completely, many others will be displaced long term," she added in another post today.

Related: Facts and information about NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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JPL — which runs NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rover missions, among many other projects — has been closed since Wednesday (Jan. 8), the day after the Eaton fire began.

The center will remain shuttered for another week; all but essential personnel are mandated to work remotely through at least Jan. 17, according to an update today on the JPL emergency-information site.

As of this afternoon, the Eaton fire had burned about 14,000 acres (5,666 hectares) and was just 3% contained, according to The New York Times, which cited L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone.

And it's just one of several blazes tearing through the L.A. area. The Palisades Fire, on the western side of the city, is the biggest and most destructive of the bunch; it has torched more than 20,000 acres (8,094 hectares) and remains only about 8% contained, according to NBC News.

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.