Station Fire

It is believed that on August 25th 2009 that the Southern California's Station fire began. The fire claimed just over 160,000 acres of land, destroying 209 structures, of which 89 were homes. It is believed to have been started at a Ranger Station on Angeles Crest Highway. Amazingly only two firefighters were killed trying to escape the flames as their fire truck plunged off a cliff. This fire threatened 12,000 homes and cost 93.8 million dollars to fight. During this whole ordeal, many individuals were displaced from their homes on the surrounding areas.
The fire burned through La Canada, Flintridge, Glendale, Acton, La Crescenta, Pasadena, Littlerock, Altadena, Sunland, and Tujunga. Many of these areas had to be evacuated due to the high risk and danger of the fire. They closed down many roads and highways for the publics safety as the fire continued to burn dangerously close to both homes and highways. The greatest lost could have been the communication towers on top of Mount Wilson, for which all local television stations broadcast from, most of the radio stations broadcast from, and of course the radio relays that the Los Angeles fire department use. This could have been a devasting lost, had it not been saved.
On September 3rd, officials announced that the fire may have been caused by arson, as they found traces of a substance believed to have accelerated the fire. At that time, officials opened a homicide investigation to try to locate who started the fire. This fire is the largest fire in Los Angeles's modern history and the 10th largest in all of California's modern history. Many individuals are asking for a congressional investigation to why the fire was not contained within 48 hours, before it got to big.
As of now, the only highway closed is a 40 mile stretch of Angles Crest Highway due to damage not only to the guard rails and signs. The pavement is believed to be intact, but until it is deemed safe, it is closed. This is pretty remarkable knowing that this could have been much worse. As of September 6th all evacuation notices have been lifted and the fire seemed to be under control. By September 15th, the fire was 91% contained, and on October 16th it was deemed 100% contained.

As Supervisor Mike Antonovich said "I'm very sorry to say that much of the local television news coverage, that used to be covering fires live, is not covering this fire necessary to inform our people." He said this because it used to be that local news crews would cover the fire to keep an eye on homes, but now they are merely covering the fires because they feel they have to, but no longer want to. There is more an interview fire chiefs than report on what is actually burning. This leads to people only knowing that there is a fire, but not what individual homes are being threatened.