Qualla: Station Fire (2009)

Station Fire (2009): Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USMARINE0311 from California, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The fire started near the U.S. Forest Service Angeles Station 11 ranger station on the Angeles Crest Highway on August 26, 2009. Investigators would later determine it was set deliberately. By the time rain extinguished it on October 16, it had consumed 160,557 acres of the Angeles National Forest — the largest wildfire in the modern recorded history of Los Angeles County, surpassing the 105,000-acre Clampitt Fire of 1970. The entire mountain backdrop to the eastern San Fernando Valley and Pasadena was on fire for nearly two months.

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Image: USMARINE0311 from California, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Station Fire (2009): Two Firefighters Lost

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rennett Stowe from USA, CC BY 2.0. On August 30, four days into the fire, Captain Tedmund Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnie Quinones died when their fire truck fell off a steep hillside near Los Angeles County Fire Department Camp 16 by Mount Gleason. They had been supervising inmate fire crews — joint teams o...

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Image: Rennett Stowe from USA | CC BY 2.0

Station Fire (2009): What Was at Stake

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jesse Allen, Public domain. The fire burned on the slopes of Mount Wilson, threatening television, radio, and cellular antennas on the summit that provide service to millions of people across the Los Angeles basin. The Mount Wilson Observatory — which houses historically significant telescopes and astronomi...

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Image: Jesse Allen | Public domain

Station Fire (2009): Aftermath and Policy Change

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scottthezombie (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The Station Fire closed a 40-mile stretch of Angeles Crest Highway until 2010. It left behind charred slopes visible for years on the mountain wall above the San Gabriel Valley, a landscape that slowly recovered through chaparral regrowth but took a generation to resemble its for...

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Image: Scottthezombie (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0