ISRAEL: Residents evacuated from their homes as fires sweep down

Record ID: 395674

  • Title: ISRAEL: Residents evacuated from their homes as fires sweep down
  • Date: 4th December 2010
  • Summary: WOMEN TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) RESIDENT OF BEIT OREN KIBBUTZ, IMI SAYING: "I ran home because my youngest son was there, and we saw that the fire wasn't too far away, so we started listening to warnings, and the moment we received the message to evacuate, we packed a few basic things, and we left." WOMAN LAYING ON COUCH
  • Embargoed: 19th December 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVACBSP1C01FNUOPFYACNZCO5KMJ
  • Story Text: Some 15,000 Israelis had to be evacuated from their homes as the flames swept down on them unchecked. The inadequacy of the response has been openly admitted.
    In Ofer base, dozens of evacuees from the nearby Kibbutz Oren sat with their children, with no knowledge when they will go home, and if their homes still stand.
    Formidable in war, Israel was defenseless in the face of a wildfire, casting around desperately for help from neighbours with fire-fighting planes.
    Israel was caught flat-footed by the forest blaze now raging for a second day through the tinder-dry Carmel hills above the Mediterranean port of Haifa, because it has no water-bombers.
    The death of 41 people in the flames on Thursday shocked the country.
    "After phases of evacuation from the Kibbutz in light of a large fire that reached the Kibbutz, we are now living the results - grave and tragic results," Kibuttz Oren resident said from their shelter in Ofer base.
    Israel's call for help had been answered by Greece, Cyprus, UK, Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Spain, Croatia, France and Jordan, Netanyahu said.
    Israel could buy three state-of-the-art Bombardier Superscooper firefighting planes for the price of just one of the F-35 stealth fighters it has on order.
    The highly specialised amphibious aircraft, costing 28.5 million U.S. dollars, can scoop and drop six tonnes of water up to 10 times per hour on a fire that's near a big body of water. The Israeli blaze is only a few kilometers from the sea.
    But Israel does not have any. Instead it has to rely on Mediterranean neighbours, such as Greece and Croatia, who also face a constant wildfire risk and were prudent enough to buy the water-bomber aircraft. Greece has 21 of them, Croatia has 6.
    Imi, another Kibbutz Oren resident said that the fire caught her workplace on fire, and she was ordered by firefighter to evacuate her home when the fire neared.
    "I ran home because my youngest son was there, and we saw that the fire wasn't too far away, so we started listenign to warnings, and the moment we received the message to evacuate, we packed a few basic things, and we left," she told Reuters.
    Israel has chosen to "improvise", critics said. On Thursday night, airforce mobile water cannon designed to operate on flat tarmac could be seen trundling warily into position on steep earthen slopes, their range still quite inadequate.
    By contrast, Israel has 360 F-16 fighters, far more than most countries outside the United States that have bought the world's best-selling attack plane, not to mention many F-15s and the whole panoply of costly, advanced military aviation.
    Commentators said the national Fire and Rescue Service, with some 1,400 firefighters, was simply not prepared for the fire.
    Israeli army planners say the densely populated Tel Aviv metropolitan area could be the target of a missile blitz in a future war. Northern towns could be set ablaze in a rain of short-range rockets from Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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