Forest Fire in Israel

The forest fire in Israel has been in the news this weekend. After yesterday's post, on how Climate Change is enabling more extreme forest fires, I think it is important to show that this is a problem happening now, and is affecting many.

In the past week in the Jerusalem Hills area alone, fires have destroyed > 1,250 acres of forest, and as of last night, the firefighters were still battling blazes. The number of forest fires in Israel have not risen in recent years, in fact over the past two years they have been declining. However, the magnitude of these fires in the past few years is unprecedented. This change has been linked to climate change:

"Winter is beginning later, and the months of November and December have become very dry, with strong winds. Continuous dry, strong winds, not only dry the laundry, but also the vegetations, and turns it into highly flammable material".

Israel is not the only place to be affected by Forest fires in the past week:

• Peru's forest's are being affected by fires
• Today there are 24 large wildfires currently burning throughout the Southern United States totalling > 130,000 acres