Praying For a Miracle
Wildfires are dreadful occurrences. Even skilled firefighters fear their unpredictability, and the wind during a wildfire becomes a frenzied fury of immense destruction potential. Anywhere that uncontrolled wildfires occur it represents a catastrophe, unless it's in a remote forested area where the damage is self-contained, and then it's the wildlife that suffers, and the forest will eventually regenerate, and repopulate. The soil becomes enriched by the resulting carbon and other mineral elements that are left in the wake of the fire, and there are some tree seeds that biologically require the crucible of fire before they are able to generate new life; nature does have her agenda.
"...flames spread on a scale we've never seen ... All emergency forces are on the highest alert, and we have established a safe area for evacuees; I hope that we won't have to use it." Haifa mayor, Yonah Yahav
"We are praying for a miracle." Israeli President Shimon Perez
But in geographies where forest and settlements intersect, in countries where finite arable and forest and urban-settlement obtains and all compete against one another for share of the available land, it becomes absolutely critical to contain wildfires. At times of drought, when the flora is already brittle and dry and tinder-susceptible to sparks or spontaneous combustion due to a confluence of climatic circumstances the danger of fire erupting is always uppermost in mind. And then, again, there is this peculiarity of human nature; some people are fascinated by fire and like the pyromaniacs they are, set them deliberately.
Oddly enough, those same people fascinated by fire often volunteer for local fire brigades, receiving a double thrill; setting the fire and helping to put it out. Their actions are often detected post-fire-event, and they're prosecuted. And then there are other scenarios when malicious forces compel people out of a sense of hatred to viciously impact the lives of others by deliberately setting catastrophic fires, and this can happen when people are belligerent rivals, contesting ownership of land, for example. For example, precisely what pertains in the Middle East, between Israel and the Palestinians; people are given to incendiary mischief.
What is playing out in Israel now in a forest fire said to represent the very worst such incident in the country's history is considered to be a "tragedy on a national scale". It is so for a number of reasons; that the country has expended untold energy and cost and hope in planting forests and valuing them immensely. It is so because through a series of unfortunate circumstances, forty young people advanced on a mission to assist in the evacuation of hundreds of prisoners to areas safe from the fire's rampage themselves became victims of the deadly fire as their bus was pinned inescapably in the path of the fire by a blazing tree that fell upon it.
The 500 inmates from the Damon prison were moved to safety in buses under police escort, safely escaping the blaze. The 40 young cadets, prison wardens sent to aid and escort the prisoners to safety were horrible casualties to an unforgiving combination of drought, incendiary brush and hotly fierce winds that sent the fire on its mission of destruction, travelling 1,400 metres in less than 3 minutes: "The bus had no chance". The fire is so rampantly fierce it has proved capable of leaping the firebreaks that firefighters have been frantically building.
The University of Haifa and two villages were evacuated, as the fire threatens Israel's third most populous city, close to Mount Carmel where the immense wildfire began. Israel has appealed for international assistance in her battle against the wildfires, and there has been a response that must surely offer some hope, from the international community. Greece, Spain, Croatia, Turkey, France, Russia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Britain, Egypt and Romania have responded, agreeing to send fire-fighting equipment to the fire-embattled state.
Israel's own humanitarian responses to climate-and-geological-related natural catastrophes that have occurred on the international scene has earned it nothing less than reciprocity in her time of need.
Labels: Environment, Human Relations, Israel, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Friday, December 03, 2010
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