Further Evacuations As A Result Of Spreading Carmel Fire

Northern Israel is in a state of emergency as the worst fire in the country's history incinerated a bus carrying forty members of the Israel Prisons Service, killing everyone on board, destroying thousands upon thousands of dunams of forests on the Carmel Mountain ridge and injuring dozens. Twelve thousand residents from Tirat Carmel and other surrounding communities in the area were evacuated from their homes as a result of the fire.

Emergency officials began evacuating areas in the Denya neighborhood of Haifa as a result of the uncontrolled fire.

srael Air Force bases in Ramat David in the North were preparing to host European fire suppression aircraft from Greece, Spain and Cyprus which were scheduled to arrive Friday morning to help battle the fire. Additional aid was coming from Britain, Russia, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Romania, Jordan and Bulgaria. The IAF is readying for the possibility of sending its own aircraft to neighboring countries to gather fire retardant chemicals to assist in extinguishing the fire. The IDF decided not to renew fire suppression efforts by helicopters due to damage caused to the aircraft.

In addition, a Boeing 747 loaded with a fire retardant chemical is scheduled to leave the United States for Israel Thursday night, thanks to New York City Mayor Bloomberg, Israeli Acting Consul General Ido Aharoni, members of the FDNY and Tom Harbour, the Director of Fire and Aviation Management for the US Forestry Service.

Egypt has also offered to assist in firefighting efforts by supplying fire extinguishing chemicals, according to the IDF Spokesperson.

Earlier Thursday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared, "I will declare this a day of mourning." Netanyahu pleaded with the public to stay away from the area of the fire and to listen for emergency instructions.

As the flames spread at astonishing speeds, fed by parched forest lands that had not seen rain for eight months, fire crews battling the blazes were completely overwhelmed by the disaster, and several towns and villages, including Ussafiya, were evacuated for fear that the fire would engulf them too. An urgent order was put out by Fire and Rescue Commissioner Shimon Romach calling on all fire crews in the country to mobilize to the North and assist in the efforts to control the flames.

“If we don't get foreign assistance tonight, I doubt we will be able to control fire, and it will stop only at shores of the Mediterranean,” warned Haifa firefighter spokesman Hezi Levi.   

"This is an unprecedented disaster,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in Jerusalem, before setting out to the fire scene.                                    

JPost