JERUSALEM — A 14-year-old boy was arrested on Monday as the prime suspect in starting the largest fire in Israel’s history, a four-day inferno that left 42 people dead, devoured 10,000 acres of forest and forced Israel to request international assistance. A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the boy, from the Carmel area where the fire began, admitted under questioning that he had been smoking a tobacco water pipe, or narghila, and threw away a hot coal that set off the fire. He fled the scene, and without sounding any alert, went back to school, Mr. Rosenfeld said.
Two other minors who the police said were suspected of starting the fire by negligence — a 14- and 16-year-old from a Druse village in the same area — were released to house arrest on Monday. Relatives and their lawyer have denied they were involved in starting the blaze, and their connection to the third boy was unclear.
The fire, which broke out in the forested hills near Haifa in northern Israel on Thursday, was mostly extinguished by Sunday evening, with officials crediting assistance from an international fleet of more than 30 firefighting aircraft and the so-called Supertanker, the world’s largest fire-extinguishing plane.
The death toll had stood at 41 until Monday, when the highest-ranking woman in the Israeli police, who was critically injured in the wildfire, died.
Many Israelis had been closely following the condition of the woman — the police chief of Haifa, Deputy Commander Ahuva Tomer, 52 — as she hovered between life and death for four days. Ms. Tomer had become a national symbol in the fight against the ravaging fire. A police spokesman said that she had been promoted posthumously to the rank of brigadier-general.
Ms. Tomer had been interviewed on Thursday while sitting at the wheel of her police car by an Israeli television reporter minutes before she set out and was caught in the flames. She had been traveling behind a busload of cadets training to become prison service officers, who had been sent north to help evacuate a prison threatened by the blaze. The bus and Ms. Tomer’s car were engulfed by flames as the rapidly-spreading inferno was fanned by strong, unpredictable winds. Witnesses described the victims as being suddenly surrounded by walls of fire.
All 42 fatalities — including most of the cadets, two police officers and a 16-year-old boy from Haifa who was a volunteer with the fire service — were killed in the same firetrap.
The devastating toll has prompted enormous fury that the country’s leaders, who have long focused on Israel’s military security, failed to ensure that fire services were equipped to handle the raging forest fire.
Israel, with its hot summers and paucity of rain, is prone to brush fires. A recent wildfire in the Golan Heights that burned for more than a day and scorched several thousands acres was set off by hikers who burned their toilet paper. Other fires have been started by stray shells fired during military training.
Poster Comment:
{{{chuckle}}} A 14-year old brings a 'bastard state' to its knees.
