The Carmel fire
The Carmel fire is one of the geatest disasters to strike modern Israel. Forty two people were killed, mostly on one bus that was trapped in the fire and 17,000 have been evacuated. Kibbutz Beit Oren has been largely destroyed and the artist's village of Ein Hod partially destroyed. The fire started near the Druse village of Ussifiya, it is thought to have started as a result of a bonfire that was not doused, this is criminal negligence. Later it was reported that there were several more fires, so arson is suspected. These additional fires are a possible case of Arab terrorism and several Arab men have been arrested for starting fires elsewhere. It would not be the first time that Arabs have deliberately started fires in Israel. But, this time the dryness of the forest due to the lack of rain for seven months has led to this fire getting out of hand. Yesterday the weather was 30 deg C (ca. 90deg F) and no rain is in sight.
What was shocking was to read how inadequate is the fire department's equipment, insufficient engines and lack of water resources. Also, Israel does not have planes that drop water or fire-retardent. Luckily offers came from several countries, and planes from Turkey (!), Greece and Cyprus are now dumping material on the fires and Britain, France, the US, Russia, Bulgaria and several other countries have offered help, including the PA. Egypt and Jordan! There's nothing like a natural disaster to bring people together and after all, Israel helped several of those countries when they had disasters (Greece, Turkey, Haiti). It appears that the Fire Department under the Ministry of the Interior, run by Shas leader Eli Yishai, has consistently underfunded the Fire Services compared to their own school systems.
One of the stories that came out of the fire was the heroism of the Commander of the Haifa Fire Brigades, Ahuva Tomer, the first woman to occupy such a high position. She drove into the fire to try to rescue some of her men, and was badly burned herself. She is now fighting for her life in Rambam Hospital in Haifa. However, you could call her impetuous act foolhardy. Both she and the driver of the bus carrying the forty trainee wardens going to evacuate the prison drove straight into the fire without assessing its speed or direction, and were quickly trapped. To me this indicates lack of training and experience and poor judgement.
It may be that such large fires result from the human tendency to put out smaller fires constantly, thus leaving the ground ready for a larger fire. We should probably not build in certain areas and should let nature take its course. There have been large fires in Israel before, but no deaths, such as a large fire last year at Gamla on the Golan, but apparently no lessons were learnt. Now hopefully money will be found to modernize and expand our fire fighting services. This is a hard way to learn lessons, but that is the way it goes.
What was shocking was to read how inadequate is the fire department's equipment, insufficient engines and lack of water resources. Also, Israel does not have planes that drop water or fire-retardent. Luckily offers came from several countries, and planes from Turkey (!), Greece and Cyprus are now dumping material on the fires and Britain, France, the US, Russia, Bulgaria and several other countries have offered help, including the PA. Egypt and Jordan! There's nothing like a natural disaster to bring people together and after all, Israel helped several of those countries when they had disasters (Greece, Turkey, Haiti). It appears that the Fire Department under the Ministry of the Interior, run by Shas leader Eli Yishai, has consistently underfunded the Fire Services compared to their own school systems.
One of the stories that came out of the fire was the heroism of the Commander of the Haifa Fire Brigades, Ahuva Tomer, the first woman to occupy such a high position. She drove into the fire to try to rescue some of her men, and was badly burned herself. She is now fighting for her life in Rambam Hospital in Haifa. However, you could call her impetuous act foolhardy. Both she and the driver of the bus carrying the forty trainee wardens going to evacuate the prison drove straight into the fire without assessing its speed or direction, and were quickly trapped. To me this indicates lack of training and experience and poor judgement.
It may be that such large fires result from the human tendency to put out smaller fires constantly, thus leaving the ground ready for a larger fire. We should probably not build in certain areas and should let nature take its course. There have been large fires in Israel before, but no deaths, such as a large fire last year at Gamla on the Golan, but apparently no lessons were learnt. Now hopefully money will be found to modernize and expand our fire fighting services. This is a hard way to learn lessons, but that is the way it goes.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:14 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home