The fire spread quickly because of the dry, windy conditions, prompting authorities to make a rare call-up of military reservists to help police and firefighters.
This is the third day that wildfires have been raging throughout Israel, with the Haifa fire being the largest, reports CTV News Canada. A number of countries, including Russia, Cyprus, Turkey, Croatia and Greece, are sending a total of 10 airplanes to help fight the spreading fires.
According to Haaretz, security officials are looking at some of the wildfires raging across the country as being politically motivated cases of arson. Today’s fires are the worst since the 2010 Carmel Forest wildfire that blazed out of control for four days, killing 42 people.
The Carmel Forest wildfire was the largest in Israel’s history, with the rampaging blaze being extinguished only after firefighting aircraft from as far away as the U.S. were brought in to get it under control.
Israeli police chief Roni Alsheich spoke with reporters, saying that while arson is suspected in some of the blazes springing up in Haifa, some arrests have been made, but he would not elaborate, according to the Seattle Times.
“It’s safe to assume that whoever is setting the fires isn’t doing it only out of pyromania,” he said. “It’s safe to assume that if it is arson it is politically-motivated.”
Authorities are saying the wildfires burning across Israel began early Tuesday morning at Neve Shalom, a community outside Jerusalem where Jews and Arabs live together. Fires then sprang up near Jerusalem and in the northern Israeli area of Zichron Yaakov.
Firefighters are now battling wires in open areas near Lotem in the Galilee region, Avtalyon, due south of Lotem, the Segev Forest, near Karmiel, Beit Keshet, northeast of Nazareth, Kfar HaHoresh, also near Nazareth, and HaZore’a Forest, southeast of Haifa.