The Middle Eastern ecosystem is prone to forest and brush fires. Changes to vegetation and grazing patterns, alongside severe damage to populations of herbivorous wildlife, such as the Israeli gazelle, increased human activity, and a worsening climate crisis has significantly increased the number of wildfires in our area. Israel's ongoing and precipitous process of getting warmer (1.4 degrees Celsius on average since 1950 and another expected rise of 1.2 degrees Celsius by 2050), increasingly frequent climate phenomena such as droughts and extreme heatwaves, along with changes in the dispersal and amounts of precipitation (an expected decrease by some 15%-20% by the end of the century) – are likely to amplify the threat of wildfires in the near future.
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Overwhelmingly, the primary factor behind the wildfires in Israel is human beings, whether indirectly or directly due to negligence or outright arson. Every year, there are some 1,000 fires in the country, the majority of them near populated areas. The massive blaze in the Carmel Mountains in 2010 and the wave of fires that occurred in 2016 took place during rare weather conditions combining very low humidity with strong eastern winds that blew for several consecutive days. These conditions exacerbated the flames and caused them to spread quickly.
The current blaze in the Jerusalem Hills followed a July that was the hottest month ever recorded, and also saw massive fires in Turkey, Greece, Algeria and other countries. In Israel, we suffered a prolonged heatwave in late July and early August. Although there were no special climate conditions that preceded the current Jerusalem Hills fire, we can assume the vegetation in the area became more sensitive and susceptible to fires over these preceding weeks.
In light of a recently published report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (an intergovernmental body of the United Nations that was mandated to provide objective scientific information relevant to understanding human-induced climate change), we must internalize that the future won't resemble the past. In the rehabilitation process in the wake of the current blaze, the highly flammable pine trees, which were widely planted, need to be replaced with natural woodland consisting of far less flammable oak trees and Pistacia plants. In a 2018 report, a panel of climate experts recommended developing a multi-year maintenance strategy to reduce the risk of wildfires by integrating mechanical pruning management with controlled grazing in those spaces between populated and wooded areas.
In terms of open woodland areas, we must prepare for what's to come through technical and technological measures, including creating and continually maintaining sparsely vegetated buffer zones; encouraging goat grazing; expanding the airborne fire squadron and the scope of the planes' payloads; employing technologies for predicting fires in real-time and taking a variety of preparatory actions, such as determining and declaring alert levels, reinforcing the Israel Fire and Rescue Services, wetting high-risk areas, providing early warning services for residents of the area, and establishing observation posts and drones to detect suspicious or malicious activity that could lead to a fire.
Large wildfires are here to stay, and if we don't prepare for the impending future, we will struggle to save our forests in Israel.
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