Station Fire update*,**

From the LA Times: Two firefighters have died south of Acton. The fire has grown to 42,500 acres and has destroyed 18 homes. Flames are threatening Mt. Wilson Observatory and a host of television, radio and law-enforcement transmission towers nearby.

*Update: The two firefighters were killed in a vehicle accident near Mt. Gleason, the Times and Star-News report.

*Update II: The transmission towers on Mt. Wilson are crucial to local law enforcement and maybe to the firefighters battling the blaze. From NBC Los Angeles:

Loss of communications facilities there would cripple fire and police departments across Southern California, which not only use mountaintop transmitters to communicate in the field but in many cases relay signals from other mountaintop sites back to dispatch centers via microwave facilities that are now threatened.