Hundreds battle blazes ripping through Jerusalem area; fire may be Israel’s largest ever
IDF helps fire service, police fight wildfires in Jerusalem hills as towns evacuated, Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road closed; dozens suffer smoke inhalation, burns, but nobody seriously hurt
As darkness fell Wednesday evening, the Fire and Rescue Service’s Jerusalem District commander warned of long, critical hours ahead, as firefighters battled out-of-control forest fires raging on the outskirts of Jerusalem with no signs of slowing down.
The fires in the Jerusalem hills area erupted on Wednesday morning, with the Fire and Rescue Service reporting blazes in at least five locations. The flames spread quickly, as a stifling heatwave and strong winds made it difficult to bring the blazes under control.
By Wednesday evening, the fire service said it had 163 firefighting teams on the ground and 12 firefighting planes battling the conflagrations surrounding Jerusalem at several key hotspots, including multiple places in Latrun, Neve Shalom and the Eshtaol Forest. There were also fires spreading in Mevo Horon, along Burma Road toward Beit Meir, Mesilat Zion, and near a gas station in Sha’ar Hagai.
Dozens more firefighting units were tackling additional fires up and down the country at the same time. Dozens of people were hurt, though none were in serious condition.
Some 11,700 dunam (2,900 acres) were burned in the blazes, according to a Wednesday night estimate by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael — Jewish National Fund, which said the Canada Park, near Latrun, had been almost completely torched.
At a press conference in the evacuated community of Eshtaol on Wednesday evening, the commander of the Fire and Rescue Service’s Jerusalem District, Shmulik Friedman, warned that the fire in the Jerusalem hills “may be the largest there has ever been in this country,” and was not yet even close to being contained.
He noted that the blaze broke out near Mesilat Zion, close to Beit Shemesh, at around 9:30 a.m., and was quickly carried west by strong winds before shifting direction eastward.
“Regarding our activity, it will continue for a very long time. We are far from having control [over the fires],” he said, warning that the fires may continue to worsen, as winds were expected to pick up and reach speeds of up to 90-100 kilometers per hour (56-62 mph).
The underlying cause of the fires was not immediately clear, with Friedman telling reporters: “We have absolutely no clue, and we are not yet dealing with this.”
At least some of the fires blazing around Israel were suspected arson attacks, however, and the Shin Bet domestic security agency said that it was involved in investigating the conflagrations in the Jerusalem area, as well as assisting police in locating those who may have sparked the blazes.
To that end, a 50-year-old resident of East Jerusalem’s Umm Tuba neighborhood was arrested on suspicion of trying to ignite a fire in southern Jerusalem, after police received a tip that someone had been seen attempting to set fire to vegetation.
The suspect attempted to flee when approached by police, but was nabbed after a brief pursuit. Police said they found a lighter, cotton wool and other flammable materials on his person.
With the blaze continuing to spread eastward as the day wore on, police and emergency services ordered the evacuation of the communities of Neve Ilan, Shoresh, Nataf and Yad Hashmona, bringing the number of evacuated communities up to 10, although residents of Eshtaol and Mishmar Ayalon — both of which were evacuated earlier in the day — were informed they could return home not long after.
Route 1 — the main road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv — and Route 3 were both closed to traffic over the course of the day, and remained closed as of Wednesday night.
In an attempt to gain control of the rapidly encroaching flames, firefighters were concentrated on the area around Shoresh, and sending convoys toward the nearby HaMasrek nature reserve, with a spokesperson for the fire service saying they were working to extinguish the front of “an active and spreading fire.”
Shortly after the fire service ordered the latest round of evacuations, Israel’s most-watched television studio, Channel 12, announced that for the first time in its history, it was evacuating its studio, located in Neve Ilan, mid-broadcast.
Channel 12 news anchor Danny Kushmaro announced the “unprecedented” evacuation of the studio on air, a few minutes into the evening’s news broadcast, and handed over to his colleague in the channel’s “alternative studio” in Herzliya.
In addition to the firefighting crews battling the fires outside of Jerusalem, a Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said 24 firefighting teams and four volunteer units had been dispatched to put out several blazes across northern Israel, including near Afula and Ramat Zvi.
A fire close to the Lower Galilee village of Rumat al-Heib was successfully contained by five firefighting crews.
An additional 12 teams from northern Israel were dispatched south to assist in fighting the fires outside of Jerusalem.
With the firefighting teams stretched thin, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir ordered the military to assist in battling the flames.
Responding to the call, the Israeli Air Force deployed several ground firefighting teams from airbases to extinguish the blazes, while the search and rescue Unit 669 carried out scans with its helicopters, alongside a Beechcraft King Air utility aircraft carrying out observation.
The Air Force also deployed C-130J Super Hercules heavy transport planes, known in the military as Shimshon, to participate in the firefighting efforts.
The Super Hercules plane can hold up to 18,000 liters (4,755 gallons) of firefighting materials.
An IAF C-130J Super Hercules is seen dropping fire retardant material over fires in the Jerusalem area, April 30, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
The military said Wednesday night that two Super Hercules planes had dropped more than 25 loads of fire retardant material over the fires, and that a third one was set to join the efforts within hours.
The Home Front Command, meanwhile, deployed 70 firefighters, two fire engines, two heavy construction vehicles to clear obstructions, and three water tanks, along with several teams of search and rescue cadets.
An IAF C-130J Super Hercules is seen dropping fire retardant material over the Mesilat Zion area, close to Jerusalem, April 30, 2025. (Fire and Rescue Service)
The Technological and Logistics Directorate also provided several fire engines and containers with over 100,000 liters of water.
However, the difficult weather conditions and the limitations of firefighting aircraft at night meant that these efforts wouldn’t be able to begin until Thursday morning.
In tandem with the domestic firefighting efforts, the Foreign Ministry said it had reached out to Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Italy and Bulgaria for assistance.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also spoke with the foreign ministers of the UK, France, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Argentina, Spain, North Macedonia and Azerbaijan, his office said, among others.
Responding to the request, according to Israel, Italy and Croatia sent three “Superscooper” firefighting planes, Romania said it would send two aircraft — a firefighting plane and another for logistical support — Spain said it would send two planes, France said it would dispatch one firefighting plane, Cyprus agreed to dispatch a helicopter, and additional countries expressed “willingness to assist,” including Ukraine and Ecuador, with other nations having offered to send helicopters in support.
The Palestinian Authority also offered to send firefighting teams to help with extinguishing the fires, but as of Wednesday night, Israel hadn’t responded to the offer.
As the fires continued to spread, hospitals and emergency services were bracing for an influx of casualties.
Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem began asking non-urgent patients to leave the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, to prepare to receive casualties, and requested that the public avoid coming to the hospital unless it was “absolutely necessary.”
The Health Ministry said Wednesday night that this process was continuing, and that it was preparing to possibly evacuate all patients from the hospital except the most complex ones, who would be taken to its top floors, if the flames neared.
Elsewhere, at least 18 people were admitted to the Kaplan Medical Center and Shamir Medical Center, mostly due to smoke inhalation and burns.
Among the injured were two pregnant women and two infants — one a month old and the other about six months old.
Another 10 people were treated by paramedics but did not require hospitalization.
Speaking to Ynet, the director of emergency medicine at Shamir Medical Center, Dr. Gal Pachis, said that none of those admitted were seriously injured, and they were not expected to remain in the hospital for long.
He said that the majority of those injured came from the Latrun area, which was evacuated earlier in the day ahead of a Memorial Day ceremony.
“One of the patients who was sent to us said that they escaped their vehicle at the last moment,” Pachis recounted. “The air in there was already very hot, and they managed to escape just before the whole car caught fire.”
In addition, the Fire and Rescue Service said that 12 firefighters had sustained light injuries while battling flames around Jerusalem.
Diana Bletter, Nava Freiberg and Nurit Yohanan contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.