The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
Note: Events posting on this website ends on December 31. See the events on the Facebook group page.
The earliest event was in 1966, the latest event was in 2002
No milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
NONE
Military and Classified Programs:
1966 – LAUNCH: Classified mission, Thor SLV-2A/Lockheed Agena D, SLC2W, VAFB – 123rd launch from VAFB
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
NONE
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
2002 – LAUNCH: LM Nimiq2, Proton-M/Briz-M, LC81/24, Baikonur, Kazakhstan
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
NONE
Other:
1977 – Brush fire on South Vandenberg consumes over 9,000 acres and takes the lives of the base commander, both fire chiefs, and a bulldozer operator
The photos today are from the Honda Canyon fire at VAFB in 1977 that turned into a firestorm, consumed over 9,000 acres and killed four people, including the base commander, both VAFB fire chiefs and a bulldozer operator. The fire started on December 20 and grew rapidly. Fire prevention and firefighting processes were completely revamped at the base. The photos are from a Noozhawk article published in 2017 and were captioned as “contributed photos” to this local Santa Barbara County newspaper; the photos have no metadata describing any ownership rights and they have been used in numerous stories about the fire.
NOTE: There is a documentary that came out in 2021 called “Firestorm ’77: The True Story of the Honda Canyon Fire”. It is available on YouTube (you need to sign in to view it) or on Prime TV or Apple+ for a rental fee. I have not watched it, but am letting people know about this option.
