1,200-acre wildfire at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County has forced officials to postpone the launch of a commercial satellite, authorities said.
The Atlas V rocket was scheduled to take off Sunday and carry the WorldView-4, a commercial satellite that snaps high-resolution images of Earth, according to United Launch Alliance, the contractor hired to launch the satellite.
But a wildfire broke out Saturday in a remote canyon at the southern end of the military base and quickly spread to nearly two square miles, according to Wayne Seda, the assistant chief of the Vandenberg Fire Department.
“It’s burning in some very tough vegetation,” Seda told reporters Sunday. “The fire grew rapidly…. It jumped roads at times and came out of the containment lines.”
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