More than 15,000 residents evacuated, flames near Haifa

[scandal 951]

It just gets worse and worse.

I lived in Haifa for about 9 years, in Neve She'anan and Carmel Tzarfati neighborhoods.

This is just way too close to home. Denia, Tirat -- how many times have I driven through these neighborhoods?

Daliat, Isfiyah - how many times did we take a Saturday trip there for a meal in the Druse restaurants, and some shopping?

I hope the fire is brought under control quickly with no further loss of life, and that the evacuees can return home.

Northern fire: More than 15,000 residents evacuated, flames near Haifa

Mass evacuation continues into night as fire rages in northern Israel, thousands of Haifa residents ordered to leave homes; at least 40 people dead, casualty information center reopens for first time since Second Lebanon War

Ahiya Raved

Latest Update: 12.03.10, 05:01 / Israel News

Mass evacuation on, Haifa under threat: More than 15,000 people were evacuated from their homes by late Thursday as a massive fire continued to rage in northern Israel.

The fire was spreading early Friday, with flames reaching the entrance to the Druze village of Isfiya as well as an IDF prison evacuated earlier. Firefighting teams were battling the blaze at both sites. The fire also reached the northern town of Tirat Carmel, whose residents were evacuated earlier. Police officials asked residents not to return to their homes at this time.

Early Friday, some of the victims’ names were cleared for publication:

* Oshrat Pinto, 26, Safed

* Ronen Peretz, 34, Ashkelon

* Hagai Jurno, 28, Kiryat Gat

* Roi Biton, 28, Kiryat Gat

* Yakir Suissa, 25, Dimona

* Inbal Amoyal, 26, Dimona

* Siom Tsagai, 31, Netivot

* Kfir Ohana, 30, Ofakim

* Wasim Abu-Rish, 28, Yirka

Thursday night, officials in Haifa, Israel's third largest city, ordered the evacuation of many streets in the Denia neighborhood. Mayor Yona Yahav said that some 2,500 people were evacuated from their homes and sent to stay at shelters elsewhere in the city. He added that initially winds were pushing the flames towards the neighborhood but later changed direction, pushing the blaze southward.

Earlier in the evening, some 5,000 residents in Tirat Carmel were ordered to leave home and thousands of others were evacuated from various northern communities. Two prisons and a psychiatric hospital were also evacuated for fear the flames would reach them.

At least 40 Prison Service officer course cadets were killed in the fire earlier Thursday after their bus burned down en route to an evacuation mission in Damon Prison. Several other people were injured in the blaze, including Haifa Police Chief Ahuva Tomer, who was gravely hurt.

The Interior Ministry's casualty information center has been reopened for the first time since the Second Lebanon War to collect all the information on blaze victims.

Speaking earlier in the evening, Israel's firefighting chief, Shimon Romach said he was not optimistic about the prospects of containing the fire at this time.

"I'm hoping that with our effort tonight and tomorrow we'd be able to contain the fire, yet the wind is making it difficult for us and it's expected to grow stronger by early morning. Hence, I cannot paint an optimistic picture at this time," he said.

'It was a scary scene'

The upper neighborhoods in Tirat Carmel were almost completely evacuated by Thursday night with many residents heading to their relatives or moving to the lower neighborhoods in town.

Albert Schatz is one of the locals forced to leave their home. He told Ynet that around 7:30 pm residents in his area were ordered to evacuate the area, and 15 minutes later he was already out the door.

"I packed a small bag, my wallet, ID, a few pictures and other important things. I quickly took my wife and kid to our relatives, living in the lower neighborhoods," he said. "The fire was spreading massively. One moment we saw it at the edge of the mountain and the next moment it was already making its way downhill. We realized we had no choice but to leave."

Schatz said he has no idea what happened to his house.

"We can't go up there. It was a scary scene. I've lived here for 20 years and we've encountered a few fires before, but never a fire this size" he said. "It was amazing - within 30 minutes almost half the forest was in flames."

Immigrant Absorption Ministry Director General Dimitry Apartsev, who arrived at Tirat Carmel, said: "This is an emergency and we're here to help. The minister wanted to come here immediately, but we just calmed her down and told her there's no need. We bought with us Russian and Amharic speakers to help the police and security forces communicate with residents who are new immigrants. I just spoke with the mayor and told him we'll do anything we can to help."

'Driver lost control of bus'

The evacuation of Damon Prison ended in tragedy, after 40 cadets in a Prison Service officers course were burned to death in a flaming bus sent to help in the prison's evacuation. Apart from the 40 victims, several firemen and three police officers who drove a police car behind the bus were also injured.

Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch visited the site of the massive fire which broke out in the Carmel on Thursday, the largest in Israel's history, and provided the media with details on the circumstances of the tragedy.

"With great care I say this to you: the passengers on the bus apparently strayed off the lane when it was clear and the fire caught up with them. Apparently the driver lost control of the bus and was hurt and burned."

Aharonovitch sent his condolences to the victims' families. "We are dealing with a mass-casualty event. There are some missing people who have yet to be located – two to three."

Haifa firefighter teams made a desparate plea to all fire brigades in Israel to help contain the fire. "The war on the Carmel is the war on the State of Israel," Reshef Levy from Haifa said. "The work will last days. These are crazy fire sites."

The Haifa Municipality said that all Chanukah events scheduled for the weekend were canceled in light of the tragedy.

[Amby 490]

Wow! Horrible news. Have they said why the fire has spread so fast?

[scandal 951]

JERUSALEM — A deadly forest fire that had raged for four days in the parched north of Israel has been brought “more or less under control,” an Israeli police official said Sunday evening, crediting assistance from an international fleet of more than 30 firefighting aircraft and the so-called Supertanker, the world’s largest fire-extinguishing plane.

As dusk fell over the wooded hills of the Carmel range, which was still smoldering in parts, near the northern port city of Haifa, thousands of residents who were evacuated from villages in the area began returning to their homes, scores of which had been gutted by flames.

Sunday was also a day of funerals across the country for many of the 41 people killed by the fire. Most of the dead were cadets training to become prison service officers, whose bus was caught in the flames on Thursday as they were traveling north to help evacuate a prison threatened by the blaze. Two police officers and a 16-year-old boy from Haifa who was a volunteer with the fire service were killed in the same firetrap.

The blaze, the worst in Israel’s history, consumed about 10,000 acres of forest and about four million trees.

As the flames died down, more questions about responsibility for the disaster arose. Two brothers, 14 and 16, from a Druse village in the Carmel hills, appeared in court on Sunday, suspected of starting the fire through negligence, according to the police official, Micky Rosenfeld. The teenagers were not identified because they are minors, and their lawyer and relatives denied they had been involved.

Israel, which prides itself on self-reliance and rushes to help other countries struck by catastrophe, was ill-equipped to handle the huge fire and, in an unprecedented step, appealed early on for international assistance.

The Interior Ministry, responsible for the national fire service, and the Finance Ministry, which controls the financing for the service, blamed each other for lapses that contributed to the fire’s intensity and duration.

The interior minister, Eli Yishai, who leads the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, an important member of the governing coalition, was harshly criticized by commentators who demanded his resignation.

Mr. Yishai, who has called for a commission of inquiry, argued that he had warned about the “desperate state” of the fire service and tried to win more financing for it, to no avail.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, came in for some rare praise. The defense minister, Ehud Barak, credited Mr. Netanyahu with being “the first to understand the critical need for air support from abroad.” (The Supertanker plane, which Israel rented from an American company, began fighting the fire on Sunday morning, with nearly immediate results.)

Nahum Barnea, one of Israel’s most prominent columnists and no fan of Mr. Netanyahu, said in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot on Sunday that the decision to ask for outside help “was a very smart decision, a game-changing decision,” and that Mr. Netanyahu “deserves full praise for making it.”

Mr. Barnea and others noted that by displaying a demonstrative presence on the ground during the disaster, Mr. Netanyahu had learned from President George W. Bush’s mistakes in dealing with Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Mr. Netanyahu, speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting on Sunday in Tirat Carmel, a suburb of Haifa that had been threatened by the fire, said that in the past, neither the United States nor Russia had been hesitant or ashamed to request international help to subdue major wildfires.

“We also did not hesitate, nor were we ashamed, in requesting such assistance,” Mr. Netanyahu said.