Fire in Jerusalem forest likely arson
The forest fire in the Jerusalem forest on Sunday was likely arson - or so it would appear from this report. Arson may be the cause of the largest forest fire in Jerusalem in the past year, fire fighters said on Sunday afternoon as a fire raged in the Jerusalem forest below the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. Firefighters are expected to have control of the fire by 8:00 pm, said Jerusalem Fire and Rescue Services spokesman Asaf Abras. The fire had already burned dozens of dunams.
Five firefighters and three other people at Yad Vashem were treated for smoke inhalation by Magen David Adom and four were evacuated to area hospitals. There were no other injuries and no residents were evacuated from their homes. Residents of Beit HaKerem and Har Nof were asked to stay inside their homes with the windows closed or avoid the area altogether.
The fire broke out simultaneously in four different spots in the Jerusalem forest at approximately 3:30 p.m. Abras said firefighters would investigate the cause of the conflagration over the coming days, adding that the fact that the fire started from four different areas at once “raised a lot of questions”
One fire reached the western edge of the Yad Vashem campus, which is hundreds of meters from the museum building but close to the educational center. The musuem was able to use their own fire extinguishing equipment before the fire entered the campus.
“We’ve improved our procedures, and after the Carmel fire we purchased a lot of equipment,” said Avner Shalev, outside of the museum, where fire, police, emergency services, and the army had set up a command center. Three Yad Vashem workers were treated for smoke inhalation, and hundreds of visitors were evacuated from the campus.
“We stopped the fire, it’s a fact,” said Shalev. He said that after today the museum would add an additional pipeline of water defense. He added that the Yad Vashem employees were ready to start emergency evacuation of the most important artifacts from the museum but they quickly realized it would not be necessary.
Fire and Rescue Services had flagged the forest outside of Yad Vashem as a major “area of concern” for forest fires, and had planned to run a large drill starting next week, coordinated with police and emergency services, simulating a large forest fire approaching Yad Vashem. “We’re all kind of laughing to ourselves, because there’s no drill, we got it in real time,” said Abras.Pictures were courtesy of Shy Guy.
He added that after the Carmel fire in December, the coordination between firefighters, police, and army had improved. The most important lesson learned from the Carmel fire was to send in five or six crews initially, rather than waiting for the first crew to report back, something that was instrumental in containing the fire on Sunday.
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: arson, forest fire, Jerusalem
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:55 PM
8 Comments:
all terroristic islamics roaming freely in a united Jerusalem
kol tov
Well, like in the U.S., the forests need thinning, it seems like. The lumberjacks, backed by the scouts/tzofim need to be unleashed. These would be excellent "international friendship" projects. Where I live, we just had two HUGE fires that filled all houses with smoke. We need to give a lifetime achievement to the environmentalists, who have managed to block any thinning in govt owned forests because even a fallen dead tree is a habitat for some species, dontcha know. So now a second monster fire has burned those species alive right next to a swath that burned (too hot with all the excess fuel!) a decade ago. Thus, the Lifetime Achievement Award. They must be so proud.
Shy Guy - cool photos!
Israel's climate is like southern California... humid with scorching winds. And with pine trees accumulating a lot of dead wood, the forests are just waiting to go up with the right spark - from Nature or Man.
Yes, its probably an Arab terrorist incident. Arabs have been setting fire to JNF forests in Israel for decades now and this isn't new news.
so will Livni give credit to Bibi for buying all the necessary equipment for the fire fighters? I mean it was his fault they didn't have the equipment in the Carmel, right?
israel still needs one of those supertankers
should be part of the next aid package
Chrysler and NormanF, in your haste to blame to blame the Arab's for the fire, you forget the same finger of blame was pointed the last time...but it turned out that the last Carmel forest fire in Dec 10 was caused by Druze, but it wasn't deliberate. It was negligence.
LOL
Shy Guy, the impotent lout:) seems to have at least one talent, that of photography.
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