Fifty firefighting crews, aided by eight airborne water tankers, courageously battled a giant fire in the Jerusalem Forest for hours on Wednesday. The fire, which was reported at 2:30 p.m., is believed to have started from a single source in the Jerusalem Forest, near a natural spring in Ein Karem, but the flames quickly spread due to strong winds and extreme, dry weather conditions.
At one point, the flames threatened to reach the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, as well as homes in the capital's Ein Karem and Kiryat Yovel neighborhoods.
Credit: Real Time News, Firefighting and Rescue Jerusalem
The first firefighters to arrive at the scene quickly realized the scope of the blaze and requested backup from other stations across the country. The fire began edging toward Yad Vashem in the late afternoon and at 4 p.m. the museum's management decided to evacuate all visitors and employees from the premises. At the same time, firefighters were able to stunt the fire threatening the first line of homes in Kiryat Yovel, while police evacuated hundreds of residents from Shmariyahu Levin, Haim Haviv and Meir Avner streets.
Firefighters on the ground and in the air only managed to control of the flames in the evening hours. Efforts throughout the night focused on extinguishing the remaining, smaller pockets of fire.
Five apartments were burned and 10 more sustained serious damage. Magen David Adom emergency crews treated three people suffering from smoke inhalation, among them one firefighter. One person required further treatment and was taken to hospital. Some 49 acres of forest were burned.
One of the directions investigators are leaning toward is arson, but they have yet to rule out the possibility that a group of hikers accidently started the fire by failing to properly extinguish the charcoals used for their barbecue.
At 8 p.m. Police Commissioner Insp. Gen. Yohanan Danino announced that the fire was under control. "Most of the fires have been extinguished; there are almost no more pockets of fire remaining. All areas are under control," Danino told reporters. "There were some moments here in the past few hours in which the fire posed a great threat to the area, and in some cases the fire reached some homes. Our objective is to make sure the fire doesnt come back and that people do not return to areas where the risk is still high, and to ensure that electricity services and life are returned to normal," he said.
Israel Fire and Rescue Services Jerusalem District spokesman Udi Gal summarized the event: "Due to the wind trajectory and dry conditions the fire spread from the Ein Karem wadi toward Kiryat Yovel. At a certain stage the fire changed directions and began spreading toward Yad Vashem and Mount Herzl. Crews at the scene managed to block [the blaze] very near Yad Vashem, preventing damage to the site. We fought another pocket of the blaze, which developed from the original fire near the spring, around Zippori Center [in the heart of the Jerusalem Forest]. Firefighters battled the flames for hours, and at 7:30 p.m. they achieved control for the first time."
The cost of fighting the fire is estimated to reach tens of millions of shekels.