HAIFA (Press Release)– “Since 1978 the Carmel Mountains have seen some 500 small and medium fires and 9 large-scale conflagrations, which are considered such when over 100 hectares are burnt. All these fires together burnt some 3,000 hectares of forest, while the present fire has burnt some 5,000 hectares,” says Dr. Leah Wittenberg of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa, who has been researching the Carmel region for the past twenty years.
Alongside Dr. Lea Wittenberg studying the Carmel fires are Prof. Moshe Inbar and Prof. Haim Kutiel, beginning with the great fire of 1989. Over the past few years, Dr. Dan Melkinson, Dr. Noam Greenbaum and doctoral student Naama Tessler have joined this team. According to these researchers, what determines the force of a fire is the forest conditions, and at times even the best human deployment cannot help.
“The extent and intensity of the fire depend on the conditions in the forest. A young and damp forest will not burn. A mature forest that has accumulated many combustive materials will burn easily. With no rainfall for the past eight months, the forest became extremely dry, and along with the strong winds, the present fire grew so wild. Nothing could have stopped it from reaching its great proportions. The smoke began at 11 a.m. and by noon we had a full view of massive flames,” Dr. Wittenberg and Dr. Melkinson said.
According to these researchers, even in this sort of enormous fire, there are locations that are burnt to a cinder and other places where the forest is only singed. The problem with fires in the Carmel is that there are some areas that have been burnt twice or even three times over the past thirty years. It will be very difficult to revive these areas because of the extreme damage to their soil and vegetation.
Both have begun scouting the field in order to map out the region’s sensitivities. “The approach is not to ‘go out and bring back the green,’ but to observe the ground and consider where to plant anew and where not,” they noted.
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Preceding provided by the University of Haifa