Name: Israel battles worst wildfires in country's history | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-05-03T00:12:53.000Z
Duration: 3 min 1 s
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A national emergency has been called in Israel as strong winds and high temperatures have fueled wildfires outside of Jerusalem.

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Fire crews have been battling the fires there.

With several people reported to have been suffering from burns and smoke inhalation, it's according to Israel's medical emergency services there.

So let's speak to our Middle East correspondent Yolande Knell.

Now Yolande, talk us through the situation there.

So from what we understand, there are still about six areas in the hills outside of Jerusalem where you've got firefighters battling these flames.

They're being helped by the Israeli army as well.

There are several towns in that area that have been evacuated, about 3,000 acres of land have been burnt.

Now when the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was talking about this, he said there had been a deadly combination of dryness and strong winds.

You can see the wind is starting to pick up again now.

Um, in some cases arson is suspected, also poor land management.

Um, and inevitably the Israeli media is really picking over this today, talking about um the state's level of preparedness for such wildfires.

Because this is said to have been the biggest fire uh that the country has experienced.

Um, and Israel has become more prone to wildfires of this kind in recent years.

With experts warning that climate change is just going to make it even more prone that their fire hazard is increasing.

Well let's bring now to BBC weather presenter Simon King who's standing by for us.

Simon, just talk us through what's been happening.

Yes, so Lewis, of course the the wildfire itself may have been started by arson or other methods there as Yolande said about the poor uh land management.

But of course when a fire starts, you look to the weather conditions to how severe or how far they may spread.

Now, in Israel and Jerusalem, we've been seeing some strong winds recently, gusts today up to about 50, 60 kilometers an hour and they of course just fan these flames.

And they're coming in from a westerly direction, which means at the moment they are in the border of Israel and Jerusalem and there is concern that with that westerly wind, it will push the flames a little bit further eastward into Jerusalem itself.

Now, temperatures across Israel and Jerusalem haven't actually been that high, rather average really of about 22 to 25 degrees Celsius, but of course we're now going into the dry season in that region.

So of course the vegetation is very dry already.

Um, so when you've get these fires that starts, that's when they can spread really quite quickly.