Last week, a local Instagram account with over 18,000 followers posted a map of L.A. County with a giant red circle over central and Northeast L.A., a small black X stamped over the storied Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in La Cañada Flintridge, and an ominous message:
“10 MILE BLAST / VAPOR ZONE HAD EATON FIRE REACHED JPL.”
The circled blast zone, stretching from Monrovia to Hollywood, included huge swaths of Angeles National Forest, suggesting destruction for hundreds of thousands of residents, thousands of businesses, landmarks such as the Griffith Park Observatory and Bob Hope Airport, as well as dozens of city, county, and federal buildings in Downtown Los Angeles.
“Bombshell,” the account that posted the map wrote. “Is this why West Altadena was abandoned by firefighters?”
Shelby C. Eidson, an Altadena resident impacted by the Eaton Fire who describes themselves as an “Independent Watchdog,” was listed as the source for the map.
In a statement that Eidson submitted to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors as a public comment, before a meeting in which the supervisors were scheduled to discuss an independent investigation into the county’s emergency response to the Eaton Fire, Eidson claimed that as first responders were setting up their command post during the early hours of the fire, they received a desperate call from an "administrator" at JPL, the pioneering La Cañada Flintridge-based NASA research and development center.
“An administrator at JPL told fire leadership that the fire was about to reach the campus and that JPL's fire brigade had lost control and needed assistance,” Eidson wrote to the five supervisors. “The JPL administrator shared that there was a massive amount of explosives on site and that if the fire reached the campus, there would be a blast that would impact everyone within a 10-mile radius.”
Eidson claimed that the “blast would not only cause a large explosion and shock waves but also massive vapor plumes.”
“Fire leadership had to pivot and direct immediate focus to JPL and La Canada to prevent what would have been a catastrophic disaster,” she continued.
The force of these [low-grade actuator explosives] is small, so they can accomplish their goal without damaging the spacecraft,” McGregor explained. “They are tightly controlled and are kept in small quantities only as needed.”
Eidson said that this information was based on conversations with L.A. County Fire Department leadership and that she submitted an “independent report” to the department in May that “went into great detail as to what occurred during the first 24 hours of the fire.” It’s unclear if the report has been shared online.
When reached for comment via telephone, Veronica McGregor, a spokesperson for JPL, strongly denied Eidson’s claims.
“The call never happened,” McGregor told L.A. TACO.
Despite its name, JPL does not build or store any rocket or jet propellants on site. Nor does it store weapons or major explosives, McGregor explained. And it certainly does not harbor any materials that could possibly cause an explosion that would affect people within a 10 mile radius, she added.
“There is a common misconception that we store rocket or jet propellants on site; however, JPL has not worked on jet or rocket propulsion for over 60 years,” McGregor noted. “While we regularly build spacecraft, the fueling of spacecraft takes place at the launch location.”
Shortly after JPL was established as a division of Caltech in the 1930s, the lab developed jet-assisted rockets for the United States Army in the 1940s. But after building and launching the country’s first satellite into space in 1958, NASA was formed, and JPL stopped working for the U.S. Army.
JPL’s primary functions since then include maintaining command and control of spacecraft, collecting and retaining data, and developing and building spacecraft and robotics to study outer space.
The NASA research and development firm’s spacecraft include the Voyager spacecraft, every rover ever sent to Mars, and a fleet of satellites.
McGregor noted that JPL does store “low-grade actuator explosives” on site that are used to act as “bolt cutters or latch openers” on spacecraft once they are in orbit. But those explosives are not capable of causing a “catastrophic explosion” that could impact hundreds of thousands of people for miles.
“The force of these [low-grade actuator explosives] is small, so they can accomplish their goal without damaging the spacecraft,” McGregor explained. “They are tightly controlled and are kept in small quantities only as needed.”
In an after-action report on the delayed emergency orders during the Eaton Fire that led to 19 people being killed, an independent consulting firm tasked with creating the report did note that there were concerns about the wildfire reaching JPL.
However, the report did not mention anything about a ten-mile explosion or a stockpile of explosives.
According to the report, as the fire spread west and south towards west Altadena and La Cañada during the early hours of the Eaton Fire on June 7, “concerns were raised that the Eaton Fire would threaten the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) near La Cañada Flintridge.”
The concerns centered around “the significant space exploration work at the facility, along with the elevated level of risk of materials such as lithium-ion batteries causing toxic fumes if ignited,” the report says.
Later in the report, investigators again cited concerns that were raised about the Eaton Fire reaching JPL, when they explained why evacuation alerts were not issued in west Altadena until the following morning after the fire broke out, even after spot fires were reported and people made 911 calls.
During the interview process, L.A. County Fire Department staff recalled suggestions that evacuations be called “for the foothills of Altadena, all the way to La Cañada,” at around midnight.
Command staff, however, had no recollection of this and noted that the satellite-outlined “fire front” hadn’t yet reached West Altadena at that time.
“What is clear, however, is that Unified Command was dealing with a multitude of issues caused by the catastrophic wind-driven fire and the concerns raised regarding the Eaton Fire reaching the JPL during the same time frame and having potentially catastrophic impacts across the San Gabriel Valley,” investigators wrote.
The report does not place blame on any individuals or agencies for the mishandling of emergency alerts.
Investigators noted that JPL was not interviewed for the report (nor was FEMA, the FCC, and the city fire departments for Los Angeles, Sierra Madre, and Pasadena, among other agencies.)
“Any suggestion that a wildfire impacting JPL could result in ‘potentially catastrophic impacts across the San Gabriel Valley’ is both inaccurate and inappropriate,” McGregor contended. “Such a statement misrepresents the nature of our work and facilities.”
McGregor described JPL’s fire preparation program as “robust.”
Buildings on the JPL campus (which includes over 100 structures) are built out of materials meant to withstand fires. All facilities are equipped with fire detection and sprinkler systems and are monitored 24/7 by JPL’s fire department and security officers, according to McGregor.
“As you’d expect from a space center, we have redundancy with back-up sensors and systems that exceed industry standards,” McGregor added.
Additionally, the lab maintains “two very large water tanks” which can provide water to JPL buildings “for many hours,” even in the absence of electrical power, as well as backup emergency generators and pumps dedicated to fire suppression.
JPL also does “extensive vegetation abatement” on their property and works with outside agencies to clear brush beyond their property line, McGregor explained.
The JPL campus is an integral resource for firefighting in the area.
Its helipad and water supply are available for refilling helicopters for any fire emergency in the area, any day or time of the week, regardless if the fire is threatening JPL, McGregor said.
These resources were used to help respond to the Eaton Fire in early January, according to McGregor and online photos, when the devastating wildfire spread into the foothills of Altadena and surrounding communities.
“Out of an abundance of caution, and knowing resources were already stretched thin across the county during the Eaton and Palisades Fire, JPL remained in regular contact with the incident command post over the course of the fire to discuss resources that could be assigned if needed, while also offering JPL resources to the effort,” McGregor said. “The Eaton Fire was ultimately halted in west Altadena and did not reach the Arroyo Seco separating JPL from the community.”
