forest fires

While fires have always been here, the climate crisis appears to be exacerbating both their frequency and intensity. The giant fire in the Jerusalem hills on Independence Day. Photo: Yair Barkan

How do we prevent the next fire?

Huge fires are spreading in Israel and around the world with increasing frequency. Experts point to the climate crisis and the urgent need for forest management, budgets and awareness to prevent future disasters.
Fires in the Jerusalem Mountains, 30/4/2025. Photographed by KKL-JNF employees and foresters.

NASA: Climate crisis doubles the extremes of forest fires worldwide

Satellites detect dramatic increases in the frequency, intensity and extent of extreme fires due to global warming. There are plenty of reasons for fires. Human error would be more forgivable if it weren't for warming
The mobile phone can provide data to predict the development of forest fires. Credit: The Science website via DALEE. The image should not be seen as a scientific image

The mobile phones can warn of forest fires and extreme weather conditions

A new study by Tel Aviv University found that the smart cell phones that are in the possession of each of us may help in collecting weather data (from the public) and in providing early warnings about weather conditions
Fires on the border between Israel and Lebanon. Illustration: depositphotos.com

The war on the hive: how do the fires affect the bee population in Israel?

Following the severe fires in the north, the beehives were also damaged - what might be the cost of the damage and is there anything that can be done to restore them?
The displaced people of the north. Photo: Yossi Zamir, Shatil Stock

Neither in the city nor in the forest: on the meaning of the fires in the urban areas of the north

The effects of fires in the middle regions of Israel: threats to biological diversity and dangers to humans
This map depicts the global temperature anomalies for the meteorological summer in 2023 (June, July and August). It shows how much warmer or cooler different regions of the Earth were compared to the baseline average from 1951 to 1980: NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

The climate crisis delivered a strong blow: the summer of 2023 was the hottest ever

This raw data is analyzed using methods that take into account the variable distance between temperature stations around the world and the effects of urban heat islands that may distort the calculations.
A firefighter fights a forest fire. Illustration: depositphotos.com

By 2030, the number of extreme fire events is expected to increase by about 14%; By the end of the century: about 50%

"Wherever there are trees, fires are likely to occur," says Prof. Leah Wittenberg from the University of Haifa, the Israeli representative on the UN team of experts that compiled the report * Even the arctic regions are no longer immune
Image: This map includes the probability of wildfires in California's Northern Coast Mountains as published in a UC DAVIS study, with September 2020 wildfire extents shown for comparison.

The fires in California have worsened 4.5 times in 40 years

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, shows that the drought of 2012-2016 almost quadrupled the area that was severely burned, compared to the relatively cool drought of 1987-1992.
The fires in the state of New South Wales in Australia, 2019. From Wikipedia

You can't see the forest

The giant fires in the Amazon rainforest, August 2019. Photo: shutterstock

Fires

A Greek firefighting plane drops water as part of helping to extinguish the fire on Nahal HaGivori road, Haifa' 22/11/2016/ Photo: CC BY-SA 4.0 Avi Ben Zaken, from Wikipedia

prevent the next fire

Burnt trees in Beit Oren after the fire in Carmel in 2010. One of the common mistakes that occur after a fire is quickly entering the area with heavy tools to cut down and remove burned trees. Photo: Hanay / wikimedia.

Scorched Earth

Attempts to put out the fire in Carmel in December 2010 from the air. Photo: Israel Police

Woodland and forest management