Israel Fire and Rescue Services

Israel Fire and Rescue Services is the national body responsible for preventing and fighting fires, conducting emergency rescue operations, and protecting lives and property.[1] Its work ranges from extinguishing structural and open-area fires to rescuing people trapped in vehicles or buildings, responding to hazardous-material incidents, and assisting in other emergencies in which lives or property are at risk.[1][6]

The service’s responsibilities also include limiting the spread of fires and preventing them through safety precautions, public education, regulation, and oversight of fire-safety requirements.[1][6] Prevention work encompasses building laws and safety codes, while operational response includes specialized capabilities for hazardous materials and rescues from heights, flowing water, collapsed structures, and traffic accidents.[6]

The national authority is commanded by the Fire and Rescue Commission, headed by a Commissioner, which oversees the organization and coordinates its operations.[1] Its seven-district structure links regional stations and substations to national coordination and command arrangements.[1][6] The Ministry of Public Security’s 2019 overview places the authority within that ministry.[1] A separate Jewish Virtual Library profile also lists the authority under the Ministry of Public Security, while an older profile describes the former Interior Ministry and local-department arrangement; the undated profiles do not establish the authority’s current ministerial placement.[7][8]

Organized firefighting in the Jewish community of Tel Aviv began before the creation of the national authority. The National Library of Israel’s archival account dates the formation of the city’s volunteer firefighters’ brigade to 1925, after fires in Tel Aviv and Jaffa. The founding group had 73 members, and its organizers included Abba Cohen, Shmuel Wilson, Chaim Halprin, Dov Gefen, and municipal councilman Rosenfeld.[5] Its first station was a small hut beside the Water Institute and municipality on Rothschild Boulevard.[5]

Local knowledge and equipment were limited. Kalman Hermoni and several volunteers were sent to Egypt for firefighting training, while merchants supplied the brigade with two large and two small manual pumps, 200 metres of hose, 50 pails, axes, and shovels.[5][9] The brigade initially operated mainly through volunteers, improvising without guidance from the authorities. It raised money through contributions collected at movie houses and theatres and at fundraising parties.[5][9]

Its resources and institutional standing changed over time. The National Library archival account records a practice plot near the water tower in 1928 and says the brigade’s financial position worsened during the 1928–1929 economic crisis. The British Mandate Government subsequently recognized the brigade, and Tel Aviv Municipality began budgeting funds for its work; a separate National Library account says the city council began allocating funds in 1929 as fires increased.[5][9]

In 1930, Mayor Meir Dizengoff obtained a fire truck from a German company, nicknamed “Yael”; a horn on the Water Institute roof served as a fire alarm. A truck bought in London in 1935, equipped with a pump and foam generator, was nicknamed “Meira” after Dizengoff. The brigade later moved its station to Basel Street, where a new station opened in 1942 after fires and aerial bombings. A truck sent from New York in 1948 was called “The American.”[5]

The limits of volunteer service became apparent in 1935, when volunteers struggled to extinguish a fire at the Petah Tikva Ha’argaz factory. A committee concluded that a volunteer staff was insufficient and recommended a larger department with advanced equipment and paid firefighters. A few years later, paid firefighters handled most fires, while volunteers took a secondary role.[9]

For decades, firefighting remained divided among municipal and regional bodies. A 2010 news report said government committees had recommended a national fire authority since 1998, but reform had been delayed. At that time, fire and rescue services were supplied through municipal authorities and regional fire-service associations; a government draft proposed a national authority led by a Fire Commissioner and divided into districts.[10]

Before the national reform, responsibility was fragmented among municipal organizations. A government regulatory-impact assessment describes 24 separate authorities: 20 fire stations operated under municipal unions and four firefighting authorities run as municipal departments in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramat Gan, and Givatayim.[11] Although a Fire and Rescue Commissioner could supervise the bodies and issue directives, municipal and local-authority heads operated independently on professional, operational, and administrative matters, leaving the Commissioner without effective command authority, according to the assessment.[11]

The December 2010 Carmel forest fire made the weaknesses of this arrangement a matter of national urgency. The fire killed 44 people and prompted emergency assistance from abroad.[3][12] The State Comptroller’s June 2012 report, as discussed by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), identified serious shortcomings in firefighting and rescue, the police, local government, and other bodies involved in preventing and extinguishing large fires. The Comptroller described the fire service as the weakest link and identified weaknesses in command and control and in agencies’ ability to coordinate and cooperate.[3]

The fire also exposed material shortages. A Center for Israel Education account of the Comptroller’s findings says Israel had half the firefighting equipment and vehicles considered necessary, a quarter of the required firefighting personnel for a country of its size, and 20 tons of fire suppressant against an emergency minimum of 450 tons.[12] A separate report on the Comptroller’s findings says the service had only one-quarter of the comparison level for firefighters and fire trucks per capita, and half the comparison level for ladders.[13] These are figures attributed to the Comptroller’s assessments in the cited accounts, rather than independent measurements made by those publications.

In a December 2010 follow-up on emergency preparedness, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss said earlier recommendations had not been implemented and that the services had deteriorated to the point of a real risk of collapse in an emergency. He called them a weak link in the national rescue system and warned that a collapse could cost lives and property and harm home-front resilience.[14] In its later discussion of the June 2012 report, INSS described the Carmel fire as a short, isolated episode that nevertheless illustrated risks Israel could face in future mass disasters and national emergencies.[3]

The government responded with a plan for a centralized apparatus. Cabinet Resolution 2699, adopted on January 9, 2011, called for a national firefighting authority under the Ministry of Public Security, following the State Comptroller’s report.[2] A government assessment says that the resolution transferred the Commission’s operational functions and the Interior Minister’s relevant powers to the Public Security Ministry, and assigned a government team to assist with legislation for the new authority.[11]

The National Firefighting and Rescue Authority Law created the legal basis for replacing the municipal structure with a state service. The Ministry of Public Security’s 2019 overview says the Knesset passed the law in July 2012 and that it took effect on February 8, 2013.[1] INSS likewise reports that the transition ended on February 8, 2013, when the national authority replaced local firefighters’ unions.[2] The government regulatory-impact assessment also gives February 8, 2013, as the establishment date, but gives August 8, 2011, as the legislative date for the law it identifies as the 2012 law, conflicting with the Ministry overview’s account of passage in July 2012.[1][11]

The reform transferred the service from municipal control to the state and established a nationwide organization divided into seven districts. A 2013 news report said the law also addressed stations and property: rights and obligations of municipal fire associations and departments were transferred to the state, which could take possession of station sites and equipment. The account says municipalities had 60 days to appeal the transfer or seek compensation under the procedures described.[15] Transfer of municipal property was contentious, and the report recorded differing claims about the value of assets and compensation.[15]

The reorganization changed employment and labor relations as well as command. Firefighters transferred to civil-servant status under the Ministry of Public Security, and a 2012 agreement between the firefighters’ union and the Ministry of Finance addressed wages and labor relations arising from the transition.[2] The reform’s stated aim was to align responsibility with authority at local, district, and national levels.[2] The state invested hundreds of millions of shekels in infrastructure and replenished firefighters’ equipment and materials.[2]

The post-reform authority was designed as a unified service, with central command and district-level operations. Government materials describe the new organization as replacing 24 municipal authorities with a national system of districts and stations, appointing a Commissioner and department heads, and establishing a national control centre.[6][11] The Ministry of Public Security’s 2019 overview lists seven districts, 28 regional stations, four medium-sized stations, and 90 substations, while also giving a total of 122 fire stations.[1] A separate Ynet report describes seven districts and 123 stations: 33 regional, 10 area, and 80 branch stations.[16] These totals come from different publications and reporting contexts; the available material does not explain the difference.

The 2019 overview reports 2,040 firefighters, 310 fire-prevention staff, 2,100 volunteers, and 1,300 fire scouts. It lists 602 fire vehicles and 14 firefighting aircraft.[1] A Ynet report gives a different station total and notes that the authority operates a special-rescue unit and district hazardous-materials units.[16] These published figures are snapshots, not a complete current inventory.

The transition also involved a substantial expansion in staffing and resources. A Calcalist report says the service’s budget rose from about NIS 700 million in 2012 to NIS 1.2 billion in 2016. Firefighter numbers increased from 1,300 in 2012 to 1,700 by the end of 2014; the report gave 2,150 by 2018 as a target, not a confirmed count.[17] The same account reported that there was one firefighter per 6,000 people in 2012 and one per 5,000 in 2014, while a ratio of one per 4,000 in 2018 was a projection.[17]

The equipment figures in that report indicate replacement as well as expansion. In 2012, the authority had 350 vehicles, 90 of them at least 20 years old; 140 additional vehicles had been purchased by the end of 2015.[17] The report also recorded improvements in outcomes over the periods it compared: deaths in fires fell from 23 in 2012 to nine in 2015, and average response time fell from 13 minutes 54 seconds in 2008 to six minutes 25 seconds in 2014.[17]

Specialized capabilities include hazardous-materials response and technical rescue. A government account describes ten stations as operating advanced hazardous-materials units with specialized vehicles for hazardous-material incidents and non-conventional terrorist attacks; other stations had basic kits for minor incidents or initial response.[6] It also lists 24 special rescue units and one national rescue unit, capable of responding to incidents at height, in flowing water, in collapsed structures, and at traffic accidents.[6]

The organization’s information infrastructure was rebuilt alongside its physical structure. Before the reform, most municipal authorities lacked command-and-control systems. The government’s technology account says a shared network connected 110 fire stations and 2,200 users and provided email, file storage, geographic information systems, and data-protection systems.[6] A National Command Center, established in April 2012, provided a real-time picture of events in the districts and connected with the Israel Police, Home Front Command, other emergency communications networks, and live aerial feeds.[6] The 110-station network figure is not the same as the 122-station total in the Ministry overview; the sources do not clarify whether the counts refer to different dates or definitions.[1][6]

The Ministry overview says the authority responds to an average of 90,000 events annually. Its 2017 figures total 96,689: 15,007 structural fires, 28,479 open-area fires, 3,298 transportation fires, 4,692 hazardous-material events, 15,023 rescues, and 30,190 events classified as “other.”[1] Jerusalem’s Statistical Yearbook explains that its relevant data were collected by the National Firefighting and Rescue Authority and supplied by the Jerusalem district; its categories include fire events, dangerous-goods incidents, rescues, drills, and false calls.[18]

Fire prevention became a national function in the reformed service. Before the change, a government regulatory-impact assessment says each of the 24 station commanders could set requirements for businesses and buildings at their own discretion, while the Commission lacked authority to establish binding nationwide rules.[11] Afterward, fire-protection regulation was assigned to the Authority’s Fire Protection Division, with one division responsible for writing national doctrine and another for implementing it.[11] The Authority’s Shalhevet fire-prevention module was deployed nationwide in April 2017.[11]

The government’s account of the authority describes prevention as including public education and information, regulation, and oversight of building laws and safety codes.[6] An older description of local fire departments lists fire-safety requirements for facilities such as hospitals, hotels, schools, cinemas, factories, and apartment buildings, as well as fire investigations and regulations concerning employment, shift work, commanders’ powers, and cooperation among departments.[8] That account concerns a prior organizational arrangement and does not establish the present form of those rules.

Training is conducted at the Israel Fire and Rescue Training School, established in 1979 in Rishon Letzion. The school trains firefighting personnel and also provides training to staff from other bodies, including the Prison Service, the electric company, and the Nuclear Research Center.[6] The Ministry’s 2019 overview described a planned National Fire and Rescue Academy intended to train service personnel and external agencies through an integrated programme using advanced technology and simulators.[1]

Volunteers contribute to the service’s capacity. The Fire Scouts programme, known in Hebrew as Tzofei Esh, was established in 1959 and accepts boys and girls aged 15 and older. After 40 hours of basic training, participants can support firefighters at stations by operating machinery and equipment, helping deploy hoses, and breaking down doors.[19] The Ministry overview lists 1,300 fire scouts among the authority’s personnel and volunteer categories, while the Fire Scouts account gives a count of over 700; the materials do not explain the difference in reporting date or method.[1][19]

A 2009 Israel Trauma Coalition–Reut Institute framework treats firefighters as first responders whose personal and household preparedness should be mandatory. This is a recommendation in that framework, not evidence that the recommendation became law.[20] The document also defines emergency authorities as agencies given formal responsibilities or powers by the government or Knesset during a crisis, and places Fire and Rescue Services among them alongside the police and Home Front Command.[20]

Aerial firefighting capacity expanded after the Carmel disaster. A government technology account says that the Israeli Air Force established an aerial firefighting unit in May 2011 because aerial support had been lacking during the fire. It describes the unit as an operational component of the Air Force that assists the Fire and Rescue Authority, with eight Air Tractors based at two air-force bases.[6] The Ministry of Public Security overview separately lists 14 firefighting aircraft without specifying their types or unit structure, so the two counts cannot be reconciled from the available accounts.[1][6]

Ynetnews reported that a seven-plane squadron inducted in 2011 was named “Elad” in memory of 16-year-old firefighting volunteer Elad Riven, who died in the Carmel fire.[21] A Jewish Virtual Library account describes the formation of the Air Force unit after the disaster and reports that it held a two-day drill on December 1, 2011, with Israel Fire and Rescue Services, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the Jewish National Fund. It says the unit had fought more than 150 fires in less than a year of existence.[22]

The Carmel fire also prompted extensive international assistance. The Center for Israel Education says 24 countries sent aircraft, firefighters, and materials after Israel requested help; a Jewish Virtual Library account gives a figure of 17 countries.[12][22] The sources differ on the number, and the bundle does not resolve the discrepancy. Both accounts describe foreign support as part of the response to the fire.[12][22]

Coordination between civilian agencies and the military is also part of emergency planning. INSS reported that the Israel Defense Forces concentrated firefighting capabilities on its bases separately from civilian agencies, a separation the authors linked to maintaining military operational continuity while making it possible to expand civilian capacity in emergencies.[2] The Ministry of the Interior profile describes fire services as supporting civil defence in emergencies and cooperating with relevant military authorities, but that profile reflects an earlier organizational description.[8]

The Carmel forest fire in December 2010 was the defining crisis behind the move to a national authority. It burned for four days, killed 44 people, and forced approximately 17,000 people to evacuate, according to accounts by the Center for Israel Education and Ynetnews.[12][21] The Center for Israel Education reports that the fire consumed more than 8,000 acres, while Ynetnews gives 8,650 acres.[12][21] A Jewish Virtual Library account reports more than 750 acres, a figure that differs sharply from the other reports.[22] The available material does not resolve these differing area estimates. The INSS account says the deaths occurred primarily in a bus incident, and the victims included firefighters, police officers, and prison-service cadets.[3][22]

The State Comptroller’s assessment went beyond equipment shortages to highlight command and cooperation failures. INSS reports that the Comptroller found serious shortcomings in command and control and in the ability of relevant agencies to coordinate and cooperate.[3] The Comptroller warned that the episode could serve as an illustration of the dangers Israel might encounter in future mass disasters and national emergencies.[3] The report’s findings assigned responsibility for preparedness failures to multiple public bodies; a news account says the Comptroller singled out Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Interior Minister Eli Yishai for special personal responsibility.[13]

In November 2016, extreme heat, aridity, and winds accompanied a new wave of fires. INSS counted 1,773 fires across Israel between November 22 and 26. Tens of thousands of residents were evacuated at the peak; few used the evacuation sites opened for them, and most arranged temporary accommodation elsewhere. The article estimated that several hundred buildings were destroyed or extensively damaged.[4]

The 2016 response drew on international support. INSS author Meir Elran reported that additional forces were recruited from 14 countries and that foreign assistance significantly increased domestic capacity for a flexible response.[4] He described improved coordination among responding agencies, particularly between police and firefighting services, while emphasizing that progress required continued maintenance and further improvement.[4]

Elran also described the service as undergoing an unfinished transformation in organization, operations, and equipment. He argued that simultaneous, prolonged fires would require more trained personnel and specialized equipment, and recommended creating a reserve corps of firefighters able to support flexible and sustained operations.[4] His assessment combined recognition of improved coordination with the warning that the authority still needed to prepare for more dangerous or prolonged challenges.[4]

The attribution of the 2016 fires to arson or hostile motives was uncertain in the cited analysis. Elran noted that one-third of open-area fires in Israel over the preceding two years had been classified as arson after investigation. As a comparison, he cited Australian figures in which arson was the definite cause in 13 percent of cases and the suspected cause in 37 percent.[4] He cautioned that it was too early to determine how many fires in the November 2016 wave had a hostile background or what the perpetrators’ motives might have been, and said arson was not the main reason for that wave.[4]

The reform produced visible institutional and operational changes, although assessments describe continuing gaps. INSS authors Meir Elran and Alex Altshuler characterized the reform as substantially improving operational and organizational effectiveness.[2] They noted new district reporting centres that gathered information from fire stations and relayed it to a national control centre; seven such centres had been established within the national authority.[2] Their account also records state investment in infrastructure and equipment, alongside new arrangements intended to connect responsibility and authority at each level of the system.[2]

Other reports point to improvements in staffing, budgets, response times, and equipment, while distinguishing completed results from future targets. Calcalist’s figures show that by the end of 2014 firefighter numbers had risen to 1,700, and that 140 vehicles had been purchased by the end of 2015.[17] Its reported reductions in fire deaths and average response time compare specific years and do not by themselves establish the cause of those changes.[17]

A later audit described persistent readiness concerns. Calcalist reported that the services handled more than 40,000 fires a year through 126 stations, and that in July 2020, 1,641 of 2,289 positions designated for operational roles were filled, leaving 648 vacant. The approved staffing standard was itself below the target in the service’s reference scenario.[23] The Comptroller also found that, at the end of 2020, stations adequately covered only about half of Israel’s urban area for an 11-minute response time.[23]

The same audit account identified shortcomings in training and operational readiness, including cancelled exercises and courses, disrupted training continuity, and lessons from internal debriefings that had not been implemented. It described gaps concerning underground and high-rise incidents, energy systems, hazardous materials, and elevator rescue.[23] The article attributed some cancelled activities to labor actions and recorded differing responses from the authority and firefighters’ organization about responsibility for the disruptions and readiness gaps.[23]

These findings echo the earlier pattern in which structural reform and new resources did not eliminate questions about operational capacity. The 2016 analysis described transformation as unfinished, and the later audit identified staffing, coverage, training, and specialist-readiness issues.[4][23] The available accounts therefore document both a more centralized service and continuing challenges in sustaining the people, training, and deployment capacity required for emergencies.

Fire and rescue personnel have at times carried responsibilities beyond emergency response. In the early years of Tel Aviv’s volunteer brigade, firefighters were sometimes assigned security duties at public events. The National Library’s historical account says that on more than one occasion they used fire hoses to disperse protests, a practice that drew harsh criticism from parts of the public.[9]

This episode belongs to the history of the volunteer brigade and is distinct from the modern national authority’s stated emergency and prevention responsibilities. It illustrates that the early brigade operated in a different civic and institutional setting, where its role could extend to public-event security as well as firefighting.[9] The sources do not describe this practice as a continuing feature of today’s national service.

Several source accounts differ on dates, organizational totals, and the scale of particular events. The Ministry of Public Security overview says the Authority Law passed in July 2012, while a government regulatory-impact assessment gives August 8, 2011, as the legislative date for the law it identifies as the 2012 law.[1][11] Both place the authority’s operational establishment on February 8, 2013, but the cited materials do not reconcile the conflicting legislative dates.[1][11]

Published descriptions also give different organizational counts. The Ministry overview lists 122 stations, while Ynet reports 123; a government technology account separately refers to a network connected to 110 stations.[1][16] The Ministry overview lists 14 firefighting aircraft, while the technology account describes eight Air Tractors in the aerial unit.[1][6] The overview lists 1,300 fire scouts, while the Fire Scouts document says there were over 700.[1][19] The sources do not establish whether these differences result from dates, definitions, or other factors.

Reports of the Carmel fire vary in their estimates of acreage burned and the number of countries assisting.[12][22] Preparedness figures and responsibility for failures are findings attributed to the State Comptroller, as relayed by the cited publications, rather than settled independently in the bundle.[12][13] The 2016 fire analysis also cautions against treating a possible hostile or arson motive as established for that wave.[4] These limitations warrant care when comparing reports, but do not diminish the documented role of the Carmel disaster in prompting institutional reform.