'Israel bush fire almost under control'

Israel News.Net
Sunday 5th December, 2010

Firefighters expressed optimism Sunday that they would be able to bring Israel's worst ever bush fire under control by evening, as a Boeing 747 supertanker capable of dumping 80,000 litres of water and retardant joined the effort.

The wild fire has so far claimed 41 lives, devastated 50 square km of land, destroyed five million trees, and forced 17,000 people to flee their home.

Israeli Air Force chief Ido Nehushtan said that 24 planes and helicopters from 10 different countries were aiding in the battle, and had carried out over 400 water-dropping flights.

Nehushtan was briefing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, convening in the town of Tirat Hacarmel, directly near the fire on the Carmel Hill south of the port of Haifa, Israel's third largest city.

Netanyahu said there was no need for countries to send more planes.

The Evergreen 747 supertanker, rented from an Arizona-based company, landed at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport during the night and by noon had dropped its first two loads.

'We are still in the midst of a massive forest fire. The firefighters are doing holy work,' Netanyahu told his cabinet, noting that a fire of this scale could only be put out with international help from the air and that Israel had not been 'ashamed' to request it.

Fire and Rescue Service spokesman Yoram Levy said that by Sunday afternoon the fire was almost under control, and expressed optimism that it would be fully under control by sunset.

Haifa District Police spokesman Yehuda Maman, meanwhile, confirmed to DPA that the fire started Thursday before noon when two youths from the Arab Druze village of Usafiya, in the midst of the Carmel Forest, were drinking coffee and smoking a water pipe outside their home.

'It spread from there,' he said, adding he could give no further details of the investigation.

Levy said the fire did not get worse overnight when planes had to stop their activity due to darkness. They resumed their work at 6 a.m. (0400 GMT). Two Russian supertankers which can each carry more than 40,000 litres were also employed.

Three main focal points of the fire were left - near the Arab Druze village of Usafia, near the close-by Nir Etzion and Ein Hod, and near a valley known as Little Switzerland.

Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld earlier told DPA 'it can take the whole week to put out the whole fire'.

That depended on various factors, including the winds and whether predicted rain would fall Monday, after several cloudless days of unusually high temperatures for the season.

The police spokesman said that over the past 24 hours there had been 'many attempts' by suspected anti-Israeli extremists among Israel's Arab minority to hamper the efforts and light new fires.

Foreign aid has been pouring in from countries including Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Britain, France, Spain and Italy, and even the Palestinian Authority, which sent three fire engines with 20 Palestinian firemen through the Jalameh checkpoint near the northern West Bank city of Jenin Sunday to join the fight.

'The fireman's duty to save lives and give humanitarian aid comes before anything else. This is a terrible human tragedy, which we could easily face ourselves,' Palestinian Civil Defence Brigadier Ahmed Riziq said in a statement announcing the aid.

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