A worst-case scenario - a fire jumping the tops of trees surrounding the Mount Graham International Observatory - could cost $50 million and take five years to recover from, but the site's director said the telescopes are not easily damaged.
Buddy Powell, director of the University of Arizona's observatory, said the danger of an extremely hot fire in the area has been reduced since the U.S. Forest Service allowed the observatory staff and firefighters to sprinkle the area around the observatory. Dead wood and low limbs from nearby trees in an area normally off-limits to the observatory have been removed as well.
A 5,000-gallon tanker truck has been bringing water up the mountain to supply a sprinkler system.
"We've been putting 10,000 to 15,000 gallons out every night," Powell said.
The telescopes are inside industrial-type metal buildings on concrete foundations. Temperature control of the glass mirrors on the optical telescopes is critical only during observation. Considering that the melting point of the mirrors' glass is about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, Powell said, heat damage to the mirrors is not likely to be a problem.
Still, even if the fire does not crown - jump across the tops of trees surrounding the site - there could be some damage to the telescopes, he said.
"At some point there's potential damage from heat," said Powell. Both heat and smoke could damage the thin aluminum coating on the mirrors' surfaces.
However, that doesn't concern him, at least not compared with a crowning fire.
He said mirrors are routinely resurfaced every few years anyway, and such damage would cause only a short shutdown.
"If it's a fire that burns up to the perimeter and goes to the ground, we'll survive that," Powell said.
"The buildings are as tight as we can make them. We've turned off all the building intakes to make sure we're not sucking any smoke or, more important, embers."
Powell said he was in regular contact with observatory staffers who reported that they could see smoke and flames within three-quarters of a mile of the site.
A skeleton crew familiar with the observatory's equipment was allowed to stay on the mountaintop to provide firefighters with access to the equipment.
When the site was being constructed in the 1990s, legal battles between the UA and environmental groups dramatically limited the impact of the project on the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel's habitat.
David Hodges, executive director of the Sky Island Alliance, said he didn't think sprinkling the area was necessarily a bad idea but hoped the UA wasn't using the fire as an excuse to further increase its "footprint" on the delicate site.
Telescope trio
● The three telescopes at the University of Arizona's Mount Graham International Observatory are:
The Large Binocular Telescope:
Operated by Arizona's three state universities, consortiums of Italian and German astronomical institutions, Ohio State University and Research Corp. of Tucson.
The Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter (radio) Telescope:
A partnership of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and the UA.
The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope:
Operated by the Vatican Observatory and the UA.
See the scopes
● The Web cam on the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope gives a view of the Large Binocular Telescope and Emerald Peak.
http://abell.as.arizona.edu/%7Ehill/latestl.cgi
