The throwing of a smoke grenade during a military exercise caused the Dom Shomron nature reserve to burn

Yesterday, a fire broke out in the Samaria Dom reserve, as a result of uncontrolled and coordinated activity by the IDF and a force that arrived without firefighting equipment. As a result, about 5,000 dunams were burned and a habitat for deer and many mammals that live in the area was damaged. There was no comment from the IDF regarding the unfortunate incident.

Yoav Itiel

03/08/2022

Wednesday, 03 August 2022, 09:06 Updated: 09:31

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share by email

• Share in general

• Comments

  Comments

A fire in the Dom HaSomeron Reserve, 8/2/22 (Photo: Baruch Tamm, RTG)

At noon yesterday (Tuesday) a fire broke out in the Dom Hashamron Reserve, due to uncontrolled military activity.

As a result of the fire, approximately 5,000 dunams were burned and a valuable habitat for the deer population and many species of mammals that live in the nature reserve was damaged.

Roy Strauss, manager of Merhav Sharon: This is a fire that could have been prevented. This situation is very frustrating.

The coordination of the training and the correct evaluation of extinguishing measures in the training area could have prevented the enormous damage to the reserve and the damage to the natural values.

When I arrived at the scene immediately after the fire broke out, I discovered that the training force arrived without firefighting equipment, which led to the fire breaking out quickly and with great intensity, all this contrary to procedures."

For hours, 20 inspectors from the Nature and Parks Authority, 6 airplanes and 20 fire brigade teams worked in the firefighting efforts.

The Nature and Parks Authority inspectors worked in the reserved area for over six hours on foot with blowers and fire extinguishers, and thanks to this effort and the work of the firefighting planes, they were able to stop the fire.

As I recall, about two weeks ago the Society for the Protection of Nature and the Nature and Parks Authority appealed to the IDF not to conduct training and construction for the Sheba in the Hermon nature reserve, which is planned between July and September, especially in the Man Pool area, which is the only source of water for the animals in the nature reserve, for fear of a fire and possible damage to the reserve The rare, as it happened in training two years ago.

However, the IDF ignored the nature conservation bodies' request. Now, due to inconsistent training, another nature reserve has been burned.

The fire broke out due to the throwing of a smoke grenade by the IDF, in an area where the training is not compatible (photo: Nature and Parks Authority, Baruch Tamm)

About 5,000 dunams were burned in the reserve and a valuable habitat for the deer population was damaged (photo: Nature and Parks Authority)

A request to investigate the incident

The Nature and Parks Authority states that the soldiers and their commanders acted contrary to the army's orders in this incident.

The Authority will contact the authorized officials in the army with the demand to investigate the case and to act so that there will be no such cases in the future.

"The Dom HaSomaria Nature Reserve is in the heart of the largest and most important national ecological corridor, in the center of the country.

This is a very serious damage to a functioning ecosystem, at the highest level, in the central region.

The Society for the Protection of Nature joins the demand to investigate this difficult and devastating event, in order to prevent similar incidents in the future."

20 Nature and Parks Authority inspectors, 6 planes and 20 fire brigade teams participated in extinguishing the fire (Photo: Nature and Parks Authority)

• tourism

• news

Tags

• a fire

• Nature reserve

• Samaria

• IDF