A huge village has sprung up on the golden sands of a beach in Malibu, becoming a temporary home for thousands of firefighters from all over North America to eat, sleep and recuperate when they aren’t battling fires across Los Angeles.Around 5,000 first responders mingle among trailers and tents, where they are served calorie-laden breakfasts by inmates drafted in to help the enormous effort.”This is a small town that was built from the ground up,” firefighter Edwin Zuniga told AFP of the vast encampment at Zuma Beach, a few miles from the blazes.The camp comes to life before dawn, as thousands of firefighters line up for breakfast.Rows of tables are set against the backdrop of crashing waves in a vast open-air dining room.The standards of dozens of firefighting battalions mark the presence of crews from all over California and the western United States, as well as a contingent of newly arrived Mexicans.Emotional support dog Ember trots happily along, offering an enthusiastic greeting to anyone and everyone who wants to pet her, a welcome distraction from the long, hard days on the fire’s front lines.”The dogs are great,” says the dog’s trainer, firefighter Bari Boersma.”When people pet the dogs, their blood pressure comes down, and they just feel good for a minute,” she said.Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for many firefighters, a chance to load up on calories befores their shift.The chef’s choice on Monday morning was a big heap of “meat, eggs, taters and some kinda bread,” according to a menu.The food is prepared by a team of inmates from California’s prisons, brought in to help in one of the biggest disaster responses the state has ever seen.”This is just an honor and a privilege to be here, serving the community, paying my debt to society, just giving back to people,” Bryan Carlton, a 55-year-old who is serving his sentence at a correctional camp, told AFP. Carlton prepares about 400 gallons (1,500 liters) of coffee throughout his 12-hour shift.”Firefighters need their coffee,” he laughs.Correctional Officer Terry Cook, who supervises inmates at the base, said he occasionally sees a familiar face among the regular firefighters — someone who got themselves back on the straight and narrow after serving their sentence.”I’ve run into inmates that were at my camp two years ago, and I see them in line here, and I shake their hands, and I say ‘congratulations,'” he said.- Dangerous winds -Two huge fires in Los Angeles have scorched 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) since erupting in fierce winds last Tuesday.At least 24 people have died in the blazes, which have destroyed 12,000 structures and forced 92,000 people from their homes, including the well-to-do Pacific Palisades, just a few miles (kilometers) from the firefighters’ camp.After breakfast, teams prepare their vehicles and arm themselves with snacks, sandwiches, drinks and sweets. The disparate battalions swap anecdotes and souvenirs as they ready for the day’s morning briefing.New arrivals from chilly Colorado commend the accommodation — even if it was only sleeping bags on the sand — as considerably warmer than home.Others raise a hearty “Bienvenido!” to bid “welcome” in Spanish to a crew from Mexico that just got here.With the threat of dangerous winds across a swathe of the region, some units are charged with pouncing on new outbreaks, while others are tasked with tamping down the original blaze.Orders in hand, each team sets off, fanning out along streets into Pacific Palisades, or up into the untamed brush of Topanga Canyon.Along the way, they greet sooty and exhausted crews coming down from the hills after their day.For some, it is their first time in the field as part of this firefighting effort; for others, it is one more day in an already long week.- ‘Ready’ -As he readies to climb into Mandeville Canyon, Jake Dean says he has never seen a fire as destructive as this in his 26 years as a firefighter.”After the first day, many people that I’ve known for a long time in base camp barely recognized me,” he said. “My phone didn’t recognize me to turn on, I was so tired and dirty.”But with huge air operations eating into the fire on all fronts, Dean can feel the work paying dividends.”Today will be not so bad,” he said.”We’ll pace ourselves and drink lots of water and be ready for a long haul of work here and the next fire.”

Among the charred ruins of Pacific Palisades, Jeff Ridgway walks his dog Abby as if nothing has happened. Unlike the tens of thousands of people driven out by the wildfires, this janitor refused to evacuate.He has been holed up in his home in this upscale Los Angeles neighborhood for a week now, after defending the building with garden hoses and buckets of water.”It was just a war,” the 67-year-old Californian told AFP, pointing to a blackened eucalyptus tree that he prevented from burning, just in front of the apartment building where he lives and works.”But I was just stubborn. I was like: ‘I’m not going to be defeated by you. I’m sorry, this is just not gonna happen.'”After nearly 35 years living in this complex, Ridgway was determined to save its 18 apartments from the devastating flames.When the city ran out of water to spray, he resorted to scooping bucketloads from the swimming pool.”I just felt like I had a certain responsibility, both to my home and my stuff, but to their stuff,” he said, referring to the building’s tenants.Several fires continue to burn in Los Angeles, where at least 24 people have perished.In Pacific Palisades and across town in Altadena, police and military roadblocks have sealed off the worst-hit regions, even from residents trying to return.- ‘Smudge’ -But Ridgway never left, and does not want to end up in a hotel room or a shelter. So he continues to camp out in his apartment, despite the scenes of desolation outside his windows.The building’s tenants, who did leave, have sent him bottled water and food deliveries, via a kindly police officer.The assorted clementines, tomatoes and other supplies are enough to last “at least two weeks.”He even received fresh socks, and chicken jerky for his dog.”She’s very happy with her food now. And if she’s happy, then I’m pretty happy,” he said, smiling affectionately at his spaniel.Without electricity, he has been wearing the same clothes for days. “I need to get a shower,” admitted Ridgway, his tweed top and jeans caked in soot.”She needs to get a bath too,” he said, referring to his faithful pooch.”I’ve started calling her ‘Smudge,’ because she’s gotten so dirty.”Luckily, Ridgway is no stranger to rudimentary conditions — he recalls with fond nostalgia several rough-and-ready camping trips to the remote Yosemite National Park.- ‘Shangri-la’ -Pacific Palisades captured the heart of this former bookseller many years ago.For him, these hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean are not just a haunt of celebrity residents like Anthony Hopkins — a former “honorary mayor” of the community.”It’s a Shangri-la,” said Ridgway.”It’s also a real community. It’s got a huge history.”The neighborhood is home to the Getty Villa, an ancient Roman-style mansion with a rich collection of classical antiquities.Famed designers Charles and Ray Eames also constructed a studio on the hillsides. With its colorful concrete blocks, it has become a landmark of modern mid-century architecture.So far these gems have survived the flames.But a stone’s throw from Ridgway’s apartment, a mall with ornate facades that dated to 1924 is nothing more than ruins.”Ours is probably one of the older buildings in town now,” sighed the janitor, in his 1950s residence.Every year he looks forward to the July 4th Independence Day celebrations. Last year, the occasion drew tens of thousands of people to Pacific Palisades, where crowds watched as parachutists descended from the sky and landed on Sunset Boulevard.Ridgway is convinced his neighborhood will emerge from the fires to become a paradise once more, for the same reasons he originally fell in love with it.”Each of these lots without a house is still a one or two million dollar lot. It’s definitely going to come back,” he said.”At the end of the day, we still have the mountains right there, we have the ocean right there, and mostly we have a blue sky and good air quality. That’s what will bring people back.”

Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, called off the inaugural launch of its huge new rocket again on Monday evening after facing weather issues.The company said it would aim for early Thursday morning at the earliest, with a new three-hour window starting at 1:00 am (0600 GMT).An initial test launch of the towering 320-foot (98-meter) rocket, dubbed New Glenn in honor of legendary American astronaut John Glenn, was scrubbed early Monday morning after repeated halts during the countdown.The company later said it had discovered an icing issue on a purge line and would aim for a possible early Tuesday morning launch, but that weather conditions were unfavorable.Shortly after 9:00 pm Monday (0200 GMT Tuesday), Blue Origin announced the launch had been postponed.With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Amazon founder Bezos is taking aim at the only man in the world wealthier than him: fellow tech innovator Elon Musk.Musk’s company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its prolific Falcon 9 rockets, which have become vital for the commercial sector, Pentagon and NASA.”SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town, and so having a competitor… this is great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP, expecting the competition to drive down costs.Upping the high-stakes rivalry, SpaceX also plans another orbital test later this week of Starship — its gargantuan new-generation rocket.- Landing attempt -When New Glenn does fly, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first-stage booster on a drone ship stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.SpaceX has made such landings now routine, but this will be Blue Origin’s first shot at the sci-fi feat.High seas last week caused the New Glenn launch to be pushed back several days.Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage will fire its engines toward Earth orbit, reaching a maximum altitude of roughly 12,000 miles above the surface.A Defense Department-funded prototype of an advanced spaceship called Blue Ring, which could one day journey through the solar system, will remain aboard for the roughly six-hour test flight.Blue Origin has experience landing its New Shepard rockets — used for suborbital tourism — but they are five times smaller and land on terra firma rather than a ship at sea.Physically, the gleaming white New Glenn dwarfs SpaceX’s 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads.It slots between Falcon 9 and its big sibling, Falcon Heavy, in terms of mass capacity but holds an edge with its wider payload fairing, capable of carrying the equivalent of 20 moving trucks.- Slow v fast development -Blue Origin has already secured a NASA contract to launch two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket will also support the deployment of Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation designed to compete with Starlink.For now, however, SpaceX maintains a commanding lead, while other rivals — United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Rocket Lab — trail far behind.Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong passion for space.But where Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions shifting heavy industry off-planet onto floating space platforms in order to preserve Earth, “humanity’s blue origin.”If New Glenn succeeds, it will provide the US government “dissimilar redundancy” — valuable backup if one system fails, said Scott Pace, a space policy analyst at George Washington University.

Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, hopes to launch its huge new rocket early Tuesday morning, but has flagged lousy overnight weather could mean a scrubbed lift-off for a second straight day.The inaugural launch of the towering 320-foot (98-meter) rocket, dubbed New Glenn in honor of legendary American astronaut John Glenn, had been initially scheduled during a three-hour window starting at 1:00 am (0600 GMT) Monday.After repeated stalls in the countdown, the launch was ultimately called off, with the company later saying it had discovered an issue related to “ice forming in a purge line on an auxiliary power unit” for some hydraulic systems.Blue Origin said it would aim for another three-hour window beginning at 1:00 am Tuesday, but warned “poor weather forecast at LC-36” — its launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida — “could result in missing this window.”With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Amazon founder Bezos is taking aim at the only man in the world wealthier than him: fellow tech innovator Elon Musk.Musk’s company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its prolific Falcon 9 rockets, which have become vital for the commercial sector, Pentagon and NASA.Bezos, who founded Blue Origin in 2000 and celebrated his 61st birthday Sunday, watched Monday’s events unfold from the nearby launch control room. Musk, for his part, wished Blue Origin “Good luck!” on X.”SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town, and so having a competitor… this is great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP, expecting the competition to drive down costs.Upping the high-stakes rivalry, SpaceX plans another orbital test of Starship — its gargantuan new-generation rocket — later this week.- Landing attempt -When New Glenn does fly, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first-stage booster on a drone ship stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.SpaceX has made such landings now routine, but this will be Blue Origin’s first shot at a touchdown on the high seas.Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage will fire its engines toward Earth orbit, reaching a maximum altitude of roughly 12,000 miles above the surface.A Defense Department-funded prototype of an advanced spaceship called Blue Ring, which could one day journey through the solar system, will remain aboard for the roughly six-hour test flight.Blue Origin has experience landing its New Shepard rockets — used for suborbital tourism — but they are five times smaller and land on terra firma rather than a ship at sea.Physically, the gleaming white New Glenn dwarfs SpaceX’s 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads.It slots between Falcon 9 and its big sibling, Falcon Heavy, in terms of mass capacity but holds an edge with its wider payload fairing, capable of carrying the equivalent of 20 moving trucks.- Slow v fast development -Blue Origin has already secured a NASA contract to launch two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket will also support the deployment of Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation designed to compete with Starlink.For now, however, SpaceX maintains a commanding lead, while other rivals — United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Rocket Lab — trail far behind.Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong passion for space.But where Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions shifting heavy industry off-planet onto floating space platforms in order to preserve Earth, “humanity’s blue origin.”If New Glenn succeeds, it will provide the US government “dissimilar redundancy” — valuable backup if one system fails, said Scott Pace, a space policy analyst at George Washington University.