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Los Angeles wildfires: Evacuation warning issued for Rose Bowl as Eaton fires rage

FaceProfileby:Thomas Goldkamp•about 20 hours
Rose Bowl Press Box
All the latest news, live from the press box. (Photo: Tom Kakert)

Multiple massive wildfires have engulfed the area surrounding Los Angeles and the new evacuation warning in Pasadena includes the Rose Bowl.

The wildfires have already destroyed more than 1,000 structures and claimed at least two lives, according to the Associated Press.

As they continue to press on, they’re taking over more and more territory. You can view a map of the current warning and evacuation zones below.

The Associated Press reported the following on the fires, which are now creeping in on the Rose Bowl, one of college football’s most iconic venues:

“At least four separate blazes were burning in the metropolitan area, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena, home of the famed Rose Parade,” the AP wrote. “With thousands of firefighters already attacking the flames, the Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help, and weather conditions were too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight. Fire officials hoped to get the flights up later Wednesday.”

In addition to the two lives the fires have already claimed, many others have been injured.

Rose Bowl as permanent national championship site?

Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt called for the Rose Bowl to become college football’s national championship every season.

Back in the BCS era, this was pretty much a reality. Now, the Rose Bowl is a College Football Playoff quarterfinal or semifinal. Even in the four-team playoff, it was a semifinal or a stand alone bowl game between two non-playoff teams.

So why not have the playoff lead up to the Rose Bowl? The Grandaddy of Them All?

“I would also move the season up towards ending on January 1. Why would I do that? Because there’s one game in college football that stands above all of them, and it’s not the national championship game, in particular, on some dumb Monday night in a dome. I’m talking about the Rose Bowl game,” Klatt said on his podcast. 

“It is the most special sporting event in our country outside of the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl has become almost a de facto national holiday, and we do have a national holiday on January 1, and the Rose Bowl is the preeminent sporting event in our country. So as college football, why don’t we just sit there and do what is so obvious, which is grab that game.”