Los Angeles Wildfires Force Closure of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA’s leading center for scientific innovation in fields including robotic planetary exploration, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), has been temporarily closed due to the approaching Eaton wildfire in Southern California.

Space.com reports that the JPL, located at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains just north of Los Angeles, is a federally funded research and development center managed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena.

The lab is responsible for running many of NASA’s high-profile robotic missions, including the Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rovers and the recently launched $5 billion Europa Clipper mission to explore one of Jupiter’s ocean moons.

On Wednesday, JPL Director Laurie Leshin announced via social media platform X that the center had been closed except for emergency personnel due to the proximity of the Eaton wildfire. “No fire damage so far (some wind damage) but it is very close to the lab. Hundreds of JPLers have been evacuated from their homes & many have lost homes,” Leshin stated, expressing gratitude to the lab’s emergency crews and requesting thoughts and safety for those affected.

Breitbart News has actively reported on the Eaton Wildfire:

The Eaton fire in Los Angeles County’s Altadena and Pasadena has grown to over 10,000 acres with at least five people dead, hundreds of homes lost, and over 100,000 people under an ordered evacuation.

The fire erupted around 6:40 p.m. on Tuesday night and quickly spread across Altadena and into Pasadena due to the ongoing Santa Ana windstorm — the worst since 2011. Since the fire started, hundreds of homes have been lost across over 10,000 acres, including historically protected areas like Altadena’s famous Christmas Tree Lane. As many as five people have been declared dead, though officials expect the number to grow.

The Eaton fire is one of several devastating wildfires currently burning through the Los Angeles area, fueled and spread by record-setting winds.

This wildfire-induced closure is not the only challenge JPL has faced in recent times. The lab underwent two rounds of layoffs in the previous year due to budgetary issues, releasing eight percent of its workforce in February and another five percent in November.

Read more at Space.com here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.