Wildfire scare to keep Kitt Peak scopes closed for weeks

Kitt Peak National Observatory and the road leading up to it remain closed to the public, three weeks after a wildfire threatened the mountaintop collection of telescopes.

It could take several more weeks to restore power and resume science operations at the site. Observatory officials said they are still assessing the safety of the site and damage to the facilities from heat, smoke and secondary effects.

No telescope domes burned, but three support buildings — a dorm, a cabin and a small shed behind the observatory’s fire barn — were destroyed by the 29,482-acre Contreras Fire.

The blaze was sparked by lightning in the Baboquivari Mountains on June 11 and spread for just over two weeks, forcing the evacuation of Kitt Peak and the Tohono O’odham community of Pan Tak.

Fire crews contained the fire June 24 with help from a monsoon rain storm.

Photos taken after the fire swept past the peak show patches of burned trees and brush within a few yards of some telescope domes.

“We are very grateful to the firefighters who worked so hard to protect the telescopes on Kitt Peak,” said Amanda Kocz, spokeswoman for the National Science Foundation’s Tucson-based National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab for short, which operates the observatory.

Observatory officials said this week that only limited staff and contractors are being allowed up Kitt Peak because of missing guardrails and fire debris on Arizona Highway 386 and the elevated risk of flash-flooding on the scorched mountain.

Contreras Fire, Kitt Peak, 2022 — View from the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope showing the Contreras Fire burning near the summit of Kitt Peak on June 16.
KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Power lines supplying the site were damaged by the fire and could take several weeks to repair, observatory officials said in a written statement Wednesday.

“Once potable water, food and basic amenities are available, the science teams will be invited back on site to start their work to return (Kitt Peak) to operations,” NOIRLab officials said.

The observatory, on the Tohono O’odham Nation about 55 miles southwest of Tucson, was established in 1958 and now hosts 22 optical telescopes and two radio telescopes, including several instruments owned and operated by the University of Arizona.

On its website, NOIRLab describes Kitt Peak as “the most diverse collection of astronomical observatories on Earth for nighttime optical and infrared astronomy.”

This was the largest fire by far to threaten the science facilities on Kitt Peak in the more than 60 years since they were built.

On June 27, 1970, lightning touched off several blazes that burned toward the peak, but the observatory was never evacuated. According to a Star report from the time, about 20 Kitt Peak staff members continued working on the mountain during the fire, and several telescopes remained in use despite the nearby smoke and flames.

In July 2007, firefighters set up defenses around Kitt Peak during the Alambre Fire, but that roughly 7,300-acre blaze never seriously jeopardized the observatory.