"From the very beginning of the war, we suffered from relatively large fires in the Rosh Hanikra forest, where 1,400 dunams burned, and around 500 acres burned in the Ramot Naftali forest. These were the first fires we had,” says Sheli Ben Yishai, director of the northern region of . “As foresters, we were eager for the war to end in April, before the summer, because we foresaw what might happen.
We had a bitter experience in 2006 during the Second Lebanon War and knew the dangers of such big fires. Unfortunately, the war continues, and the situations in the last month have been very chaotic in terms of fires, which have increased in recent days.” The recent fires, which raged following , took a heavy toll on the environment over the past week.
Since Monday, the Fire and Rescue Authority has been intensively fighting dozens of fires. Firefighters, with the assistance of the aerial firefighting unit, handled and are handling all the fires. Fire and Rescue Authority Commissioner Eyal Casspi instructed at the beginning of the war to prepare for all scenarios.
The Authority also recruited emergency standby squads throughout the country, training and equipping them to help in the event of fires. In the past week, 1,000 hectares burned in the Golan Heights, 400 hectares in Amiad, and about 900 hectares in Menara. "The entire forest of Ramot Naftali, about 8,000 dunams in size, burned as fires intensified in the last two weeks and especially in the last few days," explained Be.