On December 2nd, 2010, the largest ecological disaster in the history of Israel started. An enourmous fire spread in the forests of the Carmel mountain, south to the city of Haifa, causing the deaths of 43 people, burning over 40,000 acres of natural and artifical forest. The fire was initiated by negligence of a 14 years old boy, leaving burning coals after smoking a Nargila pipe. It took around 5 days to get control of the fire and extinguish it, using airplanes sent by different countries. Many houses burned in Kibbutz Beit-Oren and other villages. Many people had to leave their houses for few days. Restoration of nature now begins. I only visited the area two weeks later, long after the fire went off, but got a lot of inspiration from the beauty of the forests, even with the images of devastation, mixed with magic light and wide angle lens.
I hope the carmel will be all gree again soon.