Historic Forest Fires

The devastating forest fires around Jerusalem at the end of April are ranked among the most severe in Israel’s history. Several communities in the Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh areas had to be evacuated, and preliminary reports indicated that 13 square kilometres of forest were destroyed.

Several communities in the Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh areas had to be evacuated. Photo: KKL-JNF

The fires raged in many of Israel’s forests, threatening people, homes, and wildlife. Due to the fire disaster, which also included fires in northern and southern Israel, all events on Independence Day on 1 May were cancelled — something that has never happened in modern Israeli history. Many communities were evacuated, and a number of festive events were called off.
The national fire service, military, and police were mobilised from across Israel and worked tirelessly to extinguish the flames and prevent further destruction.
Communities located about 30 kilometres west of Jerusalem were evacuated. The full extent of the damage is not yet clear, but according to preliminary estimates from Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority, about 13 square kilometres of forest were ravaged — equivalent to around 80 percent of the damage caused by the Mount Carmel fire disaster in 2010, the worst and deadliest forest fire in Israel’s history.

The fires also caused severe damage to a popular recreational resort near the main road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Highways 1 and 3 had to be closed to traffic, according to Ynetnews.
A week earlier, a forest fire had broken out in the same area, leading to the evacuation of several villages and the temporary closure of highways 1, 38, and 44.
The immediate and long-term ecological damage is enormous and constitutes a major disaster for Israel’s environment and countryside.
An arson investigation has been launched, although Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority believes the initial cause of the fire appears to be human activity combined with drought and hot, dry desert winds blowing in from the deserts east of Israel, according to The Times of Israel.
The security agency Shin Bet, which is usually tasked with combating terrorism, stated that it was also participating in the investigation.

The agency is assisting the police in locating other suspects who may have started some of the fires. Police arrested a man from East Jerusalem carrying a lighter, cotton and flammable material on the same day the fires began.
There were also Palestinian calls on social media encouraging arson attacks against Israel in the lead-up to the country’s Independence Day, which this year fell on 1 May — 77 years after the State of Israel was declared.
Shehab News Agency, a Palestinian news agency affiliated with Hamas, amplified popular Palestinian calls on social media to set fire to forests near settlements and described how Hamas considers all Jewish communities in Israel, both within and beyond the Green Line, as settlements.