Blazes Scorch Israel's Forests

More than three weeks of rocket attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas across the border in Lebanon have set off hundreds of fires in the forests and fields of northern Israel, turning a nature lover's getaway into a smoke-veiled battleground for an army of overworked firefighters.

Officials estimate that the fires have destroyed half a million trees in the pine forests that blanket the hills of the northern Galilee. Thousands of acres of grasslands in the Hula Valley have also burned, ruining a key source of feed for cattle.

Crop-duster airplanes have been converted into firefighting aircraft, buzzing low to spray red-tinted flame retardant in what is often a futile battle against the wind-whipped blazes.

In populated areas such as Kiryat Shemona, the rockets have set some houses on fire and burned a toothpaste factory, although no residents have been seriously injured.

The town's firefighters give priority to residents and homes, and have speeded to strikes in neighborhoods scores of times since the outbreak of fighting July 12.

The relentlessness of the attacks, and that they often come in clusters, means firefighters often have to juggle several calls at a time. No sooner have they raced to one blaze than the radio crackles with a fresh report.

"One day I had 22 fires at the same time," said Danny Hanania, fire chief for northern Israel, a district that covers about 500,000 acres.

Hanania, a craggy-faced former army general who has been a firefighter for 18 years, is red-eyed from fatigue. He has been home just once -- for seven minutes, to grab fresh clothes -- in more than three weeks. But during a rare break at the Kiryat Shemona station house, Hanania insisted that he was bearing up fine.

The firehouse has adapted for the crisis. The control room, where the fire calls first come in, has been relocated to a basement bunker in case a rocket hits the building. The former control center now serves as sleeping quarters for some of the firefighters shipped in as reinforcements.

Others sleep in the corridors -- so tired, they say, that they can drop off despite the thunderous blasts from an Israeli artillery battery across the street.

Hanania's normal force of 40 firefighters has been beefed up to 75 for each 24-hour shift. The extras include members from departments elsewhere in Israel, military reservists and cadets from the national firefighting school.