|
February 4, 2011
Questions in fire’s aftermath
JNF official Kalil Adar suggests changes for Israel’s national parks.
RHONDA SPIVAK
Kalil Adar, director of the forest department of the Northern Region of the Jewish National Fund, recently visited Canada and spoke about his experiences battling the largest fire in Israeli history, which happened late last year.
In speaking about the tragic fire in northern Israel’s Carmel region, Adar noted that the government was under-prepared for such an event. “We were caught with our pants down, as we had never encountered a fire on such scale,” he said. He and other JNF fire fighters “fought bravely,” he continued, adding that the equipment that was donated by Jewish communities around the world to the efforts (including new fire trucks, hoses, vests and more) was “critical” in overcoming the fire.
Though only 10 percent of the forests destroyed were JNF-managed forests, he said, “The other 90 percent were in land that was part of the National Parks Authority, which is considered protected land. Their policy was not to open new roads or maintain old roads or thin the forest.” He added that JNF workers treat “forests, thin them and maintain our road system, but their policy up until now has been don’t touch them [the forests].”
In those parks and reserves, the lack of routes through the forests made it more difficult for firefighters to douse the flames, and the failure to thin the forests meant that there were densely treed areas that were difficult to access.
“We may now bring in ... black goats to graze in the mature forests and this will thin them out,” said Adar. Using goats to thin forests was a tactic used in the days of the Ottoman Empire, he explained.
In addition to the use of the goats and other measures, Adar suggested that controlled or prescribed fires might also be used. A controlled fire is one set by foresters, which is a measure taken in the United States, for example, to thin a forest. Other options he suggested include practices mimicking natural disturbance, such as thinning and pruning.
Adar explained that controlled fires are not popular or even that practical in Israel but “prescribed fires should not be dismissed totally from our toolbox as foresters.” Israel, according to Adar, is very fragmented and forests are often in close proximity to villages, such that it’s “not that simple to create and maintain fuel breaks,” which are patches empty of vegetation that act as barriers to a spreading fire, “although for many years now ... JNF has invested money, knowledge and manpower in creating fuel breaks around villages with high fire risks,” he said.
“People don’t like trees being cut down. People don’t like seeing smoke and fire so we haven’t done this.... But maybe by law we will have to have the fire brigade come to a village and say you have to cut this tree down. Things have to change now,” he said.
Adar also estimated that, without international aid, the fire, which burned about 30,000 dunams (almost 7,500 acres), would have lasted “another few days, covering an additional stretch of green forests, until there was rainfall.”
Mount Carmel has the biggest and oldest population of natural pine trees in Israel. Both the pine and oak trees that burned in the fire “are accustomed to fire and could naturally regenerate easily after it,” he said.
In order to rehabilitate its forests, Adar explained that JNF “will open new trails for safety, and planting will be in very small portions only.... We’ll wait a while to see if there is natural regeneration. If there [isn’t], we may plant tree species to increase forest diversity and sustainability.”
Adar rejected the claim that Shas Minister of Interior Eli Yishai was to blame for the inadequate state of the equipment and preparedness of Israel to confront this fire. “He is not to blame,” said Adar. “It is a series of people before him, not just him. They are all responsible. This has been neglected for years.”
Rhonda Spivak is editor of the e-paper winnipegjewishreview.com.
^TOP
|
