Israeli Firefighters Join Efforts in CA Wildfire Response, Strengthening Global Alliances
A tangible sign of the U.S.-Israel friendship on display in southern California with the help of a special team of Israeli firefighters.
As the Los Angeles wildfires started tearing through the city, the Israeli consulate there spearheaded an effort to bring in their experts.
Now, a team from Israel has joined the army of 14,000 firefighters who have come together to help combat what could be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
“We drove through those neighborhoods. There’s nothing there,” said Adi Zahavi, with the Israel Emergency Volunteers Project.
This team of 13 firefighters sees their contribution as a way to give back. “You guys always stood and stand next to Israel, behind Israel. Now it’s time for Israel to come and stand behind you,” Zahavi said.
Israel Operations Officer, Li-Shay Amor, compared the fire destruction to Gaza and hopes her team can share best practices to ensure a fire of this magnitude never happens again.
She explained, “I look at it and I said, ‘Oh, my God, we must stop it. We must do everything we can to come and support you’ because we cannot let it go like this. We must save our places, our home, our land.”
This group is not just firefighters—they are fire experts. Dr. Shay Levy wrote a book on wildfires and researches embers.
“Sometimes you’re with the crews—the fire crews—and sometimes you cannot see it because of the smoke and you focus on the fire, and suddenly the fire is starting in another area,” said Dr. Shay Levy with Israel Fire and Rescue.
The relationship between California and Israel firefighters began in 2010 when then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent a contingent of California firefighters to Israel to help battle the Carmel fires there.
“We are talking to them and learning how they manage incidents over there, and we are embedding them. It’s a learning process in that we all have different dynamics and incidents in what we do,” said Lonny Olson with Cal Fire.
It just so happens the fires here broke out on January 7—exactly 15 months after Hamas attacked Israel. Somehow, both events are now serving to bring these two allies closer together.
“Right now, this is our time and this our turn to come and support you at your tough times,” said Amor.
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