Residents evacuated amidst wave of fires in Jerusalem area

Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Jerusalem on Thursday, as a wave of blazes broke out amidst a Jewish holiday celebrated by the lighting of bonfires.

Yoram Levi, a spokesman for the fire service, said that a forest at the Cedar Valley outside Jerusalem was caught ablaze, with the fire quickly spreading to suburbs and neighborhoods of Jerusalem due to strong winds and hot weather.

In Ramot and Mevaseret Zion outside the city, residents of 60 homes were required to leave immediately.

Blazes raged also in the Arab village of Abu Gosh, west of Jerusalem, where residents of ten homes were evacuated.

In the afternoon, a large fire broke a few meters across from the String Bridge at the entrance to Jerusalem and in the neighborhood of Lifta, at the other side of a major road leading to the city.

Levi said that 48 teams and 13 firefighting aircrafts have been struggling to subdue the blazes since noon.

Fires were reported also in nine towns and communities in the southern county and outside a camping in the north. No injuries were reported.

A spokesperson for the Jewish National Fund, an official body in charge of Israel's forests, told the Hebrew Ynet news site that the blazes were a result of bonfires that were lighted last night, a traditional custom to mark the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba'Omer. Endit