One of the fires burning its way through Los Angeles is threatening to take a number of TV and radio stations off the air.
The Eaton Fire, which ravaged Altadena, is encroaching on Mt. Wilson, which has a number of broadcast towers at its peak. The L.A.-based NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and PBS stations all have transmitters atop the mountain, as does KTLA and Univision’s KMEX.
In addition, a slew of FM radio stations transmit from the top of Mt. Wilson, including stalwarts like KCBS 93.1 and KIIS 102.7.
KTLA showed live footage from atop Mt. Wilson Thursday, showing the fire approaching the towers.
“This is very dangerous in terms of safety and emergency safety throughout much of southern California,” the anchor said as images of the fire took up the screen. “These are repeater towers. So these are towers that not only news stations, radio stations, use here in Southern California, but in emergency events, this is very important, it’s way the police, the fire, this is the way that they communicate as well, and that’s why you’ve been seeing some of our live shots. They’ve been going in and out these repeater stations. So the signals come off of the transponders down in the lower elevations, they hit these towers, and they’re able to communicate with areas that are miles and miles away.”
Meanwhile, the Mt. Wilson Observatory has been evacuated, with only essential staff and firefighters on site. “As you may have seen on the news, the Eaton fire is approaching Mount Wilson,” the observatory posted on its Instagram page. “There are firefighters on the grounds but the power is out at the Observatory so communication is limited. We are monitoring the situation and will update here as we can. Thank you for your concern.”
In the event that the fire does subsume the broadcast towers, the TV and radio stations would be off the broadcast airwaves until any auxiliary towers elsewhere could be brought online. That being said, relatively few consumers get their TV signal from a broadcast antenna, with most accessing the networks via cable, satellite, or streaming options, which would not be impacted.
English (US) ·