http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140968
36 Confirmed Dead in Fire,
Most were on Prisons Service Bus
and probably do not have much better information than you all have.
But a few fast comments. A lot is still not known about the fire and
the related events. It now looks like it started in an illegal
garbage site near the Druse village of Issawiya on Mt Carmel. It
spread east and the ex-kibbutz of Beit Oren was badly damaged. The
worst part of the tragedy is the death of about 40 prison service
cadets on a bus caught in the firestorm. As fate would have it, most
of those cadets are apparently Druse themselves, and had been in a
training course to serve as prison wardens and workers.
Fire started during first day of Hannuka, and is raging now as Jews
light the second candle. It has not yet rained this year and the
country is parched. Ideal for forest fires.
There are reports of incompetence on Israel’s government’s part in
having failed to plan properly for such an event and for having failed
to procure firefighting planes and equipment. We will know more later
if these charges are fair.
The air in Haifa is filled with smoke. The flames are not far from
the University of Haifa, so if the winds change I could end up getting
a long vacation. University was evacuated today at 2 PM. The fires
are clearly visible from the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway. From a distance
the smoke looks like an erupting volcano.
Tira, the next town south of Haifa is being partially evacuated, and
plans are afoot to evacuate the southernmost neighborhood in Haifa,
Denya, where the rich and yuppies live in between forest fires. (It
has seen damage in the past from other fires.)
Most forest fires in Israel are acts of ecological terror set by Arab
arsonists. When this fire broke out, there were news reports here
that it was arson, although now the media are claiming (politically
correctly?) that it was accidental and spread from a Druse garbage
lot.
The chief of Haifa police was injured in the fire. As it turns out,
the chief is a woman (I confess, I did not even know that). Yes, a
woman. But that will no doubt be overlooked by the radical feminizts
sucking up to the Hamas and boycotting Israel. See
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3993445,00.html
Israel asked for firefighting aid from Turkey. I personally would
have limited the requests for aid to civilized countries.
More:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3993203,00.html
Firefighters recommend evacuation of Haifa University
Haifa firefighters recommended that Haifa University students be
evacuated from campus on Thursday, due to a fire raging on the Carmel.
In their recommendation they stated that there was no fear of the fire
spreading in the university's direction and that the evacuation was
merely a precautionary measure.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/haifa-mayor-says-flames-spread-on-a-scale-we-ve-never-seen-1.328425
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Kislev 25, 5771, 02 December 10 04:29
by Gil Ronen and Hillel Fendel(Israelnationalnews.com)
Dozens of security personnel, many from the Israel Prisons Service, are believed to have perished in the fire that has been raging on the Carmel Mountain all day Thursday. Twenty two people were confirmed dead by 7:00 PM and 14 more bodies were reported found shortly after 10:00 PM. The total number of dead is estimated at 40 or 42.
This is the largest and deadliest fire since Israel's founding in 1948, and possibly also the worst terror attack in its history, ifsuspicion of arson is confirmed. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday evening that the fire on the Carmel range is "a disaster of a scope that we are not familiar with."
Most of the dead are reportedly IPS cadets, most of them Druze, who were in their 20's. They were being transported on a bus after assisting in the evacuation of the Damon Prison. At a certain point the fire began spreading at great speed – covering a mile in five minutes, according to a firefighting officer – and the bus was caught in the flames with no chance of getting out.
Police officers who were in a separate vehicle nearby were reportedly also caught in the flames. Two of them were said to be missing at 8:00 PM and Lt.-Col. Ahuva Tomer, Commander of Haifa Police, is in serious condition after suffering burns.
Conflicting reports
Minister of Public Security Yitzchak Aharonovich said Thursday evening that the fire is under “currently under control,” but Fire Services Spokesman Hezi Levy said the opposite. The fire, he said, is out of control and is raging in three major locations: the Druze village of Usefiya, Beit Oren, and Nir Etzion.
Residents of religious kibbutz Nir Etzion, the Ein Hod artists' village and the nearby Arab village Ein Hud have been instructed to leave their homes, after it was determined that the fire might reach the communities.
The residents of Kibbutz Beit Oren and Usefiyeh were evacuated earlier in the day, as were the students of Haifa University, which is somewhat further away. Several homes in Usefiya have been burnt to the ground. Haifa University has been closed down until further notice.
The Brosh neighborhood in Tirat HaCarmel and a mental health hospital in Tirat HaCarmel may also be evacuated.
A resident of Beit Oren told Channel 2 news that several homes in the kibbutz burned down. Firefighters' spokesman Levy called Beit Oren "the former kibbutz of Beit Oren" in an evening interview, and said most of the homes in the comnmunity had been damaged.
Arson likely
Channel 2 reporter Yossi Mizrachi said that the way in which the fire spread indicated that the blaze erupted from three locations simultaneously -- making arson a likely possibility.
The fire broke out around 10:00 AM this morning in an illegal garbage dump in the Carmel Mountains.
Ongoing rescue and fire-fighting efforts are said to be nearly impossible given the physical conditions of the mountains, smoke, dry conditions and winds.
The trapped bus is said to have departed from the Damon Prison, apparently as part of the attempt to evacuate the prison in the face of the fast-spreading fire.
The Damon jail mostly holds Arabs who were caught illegally entering Israel from the Palestinian Authority. According to IDF Radio, however, the bus was "not a prisoner bus."
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THE FIRE
By Steven Plaut
You all are hearing about the big fire near Haifa. I am in the city,
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