LOS ANGELES—The wildfires raging across Southern California are now threatening the Mt. Wilson Observatory, designed by D. H. Burnham & Co., the firm of famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Firefighters announced yesterday that it was only a matter of time before the fires reached the structure. A feed of images from the station, still running as of this morning, showed a thick haze of smoke approaching the building. 

The observatory was built in 1904, two years after the completion of Burnham’s iconic Flatiron Building in New York, and houses the Hooker telescope, which from 1917 to 1949 was the world’s largest. Today, the observatory is home to television, radio, and cellular transmitters, all of which could be affected if serious damage occurs. 

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.