Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and PhotosA mega-fire burst yesterday at the heart of Eshckol Park in the southern Israel.
There were no casualties other then the park itself and the nature within it.
Eshckol Park is a very green and beautiful oasis in the south, and a it is a tourist attraction especially for Israelis during the weekends and holidays. It was a vast meadow ornamented with trees of different types, and right in the middle the Basher River goes through it. But yesterday, the little piece of heaven in the middle of the desert burned down in what firemen described as “The largest fire of the last decade”. Thousands of acres went in flames.
The fire started as two different fire spots. Eight Negev fire trucks were launched, but they came across an access problem, due to the way the park is built, so fire choppers were launched as well. All campers in the park were evacuated to allow better access to the firemen. By night the choppers had to retire for fear of crushing into electrical wires. Tractors and heavy machinery were brought to pave the roads and keep the fire from spreading. Volunteers from the area also pitched in and tried to help stopping the fire from spreading farther into the south, into the park.
But the wind was their real problem, sending flames and sparks directly at that direction, directly at the easily flammable trees and grass of park Eshckol. The fire was monstrous, burning acre after acre, until at one point the fire department announced that there might be danger for the small settlements of the area, especially the settlement Patish and Kibutz Urim.
Reshef Gershon, commander of the force during that night said that, “Many forces were recruited to fight the flames, but the feisty winds fanned the fire and spread it across the park.”
The police are currently investigating the cause to the fire, but there is an assessment by the Authority of Nature and Gardens, that it was started by a “Baggie” vehicle, driving around the park and emitting flammable substance from its exhaust. There is also a danger to many of the wild life of the area. It would years for the park to recover, for new trees to grow and for the green to come back.
And so we are left only with the striking truth which strike us every time anew, that what take years to build, can be burned down in only a few hours.
2 Comments
what is a “Baggie” vehicle? I can’t find any reference to such a vehicle on the Internet.
I think it’s those open things with loud motorcycle-type engines that kids start driving at age 16. As these vehicles have been involved in several serious accidents, they should be banned altogether - except for limited use on farm’s in Kibbutzim, etc. Young people need to have a little ’savalanut’ and wait until they can legally drive a real car.
These fires, like the one that almost completely ruined the forest in the Jerusalem Corridor and at the ‘Chai Barr’ nature preserve on Mt. Carmel,and the Ein Hod artist colony2 can take a generation to recover from - if ever!
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