Carmel blaze 'under better control,' says fire chief
By YAAKOV LAPPIN AND YAAKOV KATZ
12/05/2010 00:42
The Jerusalem Post
Spokesman says fire at its most stable since beginning; international aircraft resume operations to put out flames; five million trees destroyed across 50,000 dunams of land.
The Carmel Mountain Range blaze was under better control on Sunday morning, Fire Chief Shimon Romah told Army Radio. While saying that this was the best state the fire-fighting teams had found themselves since the blaze began on Thursday, he added that only cautious optimism should be exercised as fires still raged.
In a statement on Sunday morning, Boaz Rakia, spokesperson for the firefighters, said that although there was a hope that the fires would be under control by Sunday night, it would still be a number of days before all the fires were put out
Police: Carmel fire was act of negligence, not arson
Photo by: Ben Hartman
By YAAKOV LAPPIN AND JPOST.COM STAFF
12/04/2010 13:43
Cops clarify that smaller fires may have been started by suspected arsonists, including Tivon and Kiryat Bialik blazes
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told The Jerusalem Post Saturday, the evaluation that negligence caused the Carmel fire was an initial and not a final conclusion. Rosenfeld added that the initial evaluation was based on an analysis of the area identified as being the fire's source.
At a press conference earlier Saturday, the Hof police sub-district head Deputy Commander Roni Attias said that the fire was caused by the negligence of a family in the Carmel area. He said they are currently busy investigating, but "know what the incident was."
Police said they were close to identifying the family. Channel 10 reported that it was suspected that the fire started from a nargilla water-pipe.
On Friday, Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen that two arson suspects arrested earlier in the day are not linked to the main fire on the Carmel Mountain.
Cohen said that investigators have determined that the large fire, which is raging in the Carmel, spread from a single ignition point. He added that the cause of the fire would be determined by Saturday.
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