At the time of the Carmel disaster, which occurred between December 2 and 6, 2010, one of the worst national disasters in the history of the State of Israel, there was Oren Leshem, an officer in the Air Force, deputy commander of an aviation squadron at the Ramat David base, the northern base that received most of the air forces that arrived from abroad to help put out the massive fire. “This whole experience was very powerful,” he says now.
“At that time I was already a seasoned and experienced officer, after the Second Lebanon War and many operations, but what happened in the fire led me to write in a notebook significant things that happened there. Beyond all the investigations we did within the air force after the incident, a week after everything calmed down, I felt the need to sit at home and process everything I experienced – from the story of how we took the first pilot out for a sortie to the moment I saw the prime minister talking to the commander of the air force, etc.
Those notes in the notebook became the lecture that Shem, who was released from the army in 2018, gave in recent years about the Carmel disaster, first within the Air Force and later before administrative and organizational bodies. Now they have also turned into a new book he wrote about the disaster, “Smoke of Uncertainty”, for the publication of which he is currently raising funding through Hadstart. says “Then I realized it was interesting. A year ago I sat down to write, and it turned out to be the first book ever written about the Carmel disaster.”
How was the writing process?
“Writing was natural. In the writing process, still in the draft stage, I realized that I was mentioning real names and people and I said: ‘I need to talk to them. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.’ I talked to almost all the people mentioned in the book. I sat down for coffee with Brigadier General Ronan Simchai, my base commander, who is a central character in the story, and suddenly I saw how he and each of the characters has a different narrative built on this story, each of them remembers things in a certain way. In a conversation with my squadron commander , who is the first commander from the Air Force who took a fire force and went out to help, he told me about everything that led him to this important resource. At the end of the conversation we were amazed at how we worked together, and closely, for so many years and we never talked about it.”
“Great idea”
The Carmel disaster claimed the lives of 44 people. The fire burned 25 thousand dunams and millions of trees. Also, 17 thousand people were evacuated from their homes and 250 buildings were burned. One of the events mentioned in detail in the book is the bus disaster that happened on December 2, 2010 at 15:17, during which a bus carrying cadets who were sent to reinforce the evacuation of Damon prison inmates – got caught in a firestorm, caught fire and burned. The driver and 37 of the 40 passengers of the bus, most of them cadets from the Shavas officers’ course, perished. Three firefighters and three police officers, who tried to save the passengers of the burning bus, also perished in the disaster.
“I experienced the event from the control post,” he recalls there. “The television was on and in a sense served as a source of intelligence for us. We saw something unusual happening and then I heard that a Yasir helicopter had landed at our place to refuel. I was not informed of this in advance, and then it became clear to me that they had arrived from a large event casualties. The helicopters arrived covered in blood, and the guys who got off the rescue helicopter were shocked by the incident. Then all the things started to connect. In the book I describe the bus ride, which passes the checkpoint at 3:17 p.m. 20 minutes later there is a call to the police operator from someone who reports and begs about her life because they are all being burned. Then there is the report of the late Lieutenant Ahuva Tomer about what is happening there. This event remains in the mind as an integral part of this disaster, which can be likened to a war. The war started and we have already claimed 44 lives. There was a feeling that the country was going to burn.”
When did you start taking control of the fire?
“The combination of extreme weather and winds was deadly. In the first two days the fire only grew and we were unable to control it. Only on the third day did we reach a situation where the fire did not spread. It took five days to turn it off.”
At what point did you feel that this was a national disaster?
“It hit me for the first time when I heard about the bus disaster. I was thinking in terms of war. I was sitting inside a control post, and it gave me a wide angle of view. My ability to influence the event was probably relatively large, basically the fact that I intercepted and took out dozens of planes, basically the fact that I placed the people there and supported the ground forces. The management from there was significant, but it was back management that allowed for a very broad perspective. When I left for the first time home from the outpost on Saturday morning, the square near the outpost – which was empty when I arrived on Thursday – was suddenly full of Greek and French planes. Suddenly it hit me, especially when I saw the burning Carmel. This is the first time that it dawned on me that there is something extreme and different here that cannot be put on the agenda. It’s a national event that touched and touches everyone, and I still hear this from people to this day.”
How long did it take you to realize what was going on from the moment the fire started to increase?
“On that Thursday I was actually on a day off with the children. I heard on the radio about the fire, and I saw on the entrance road from the Ramat David junction a sight that resembled a nuclear mushroom on the Carmel. When the squadron commander rang and told me he was going to an incident with fire brigades, I had a gut feeling that something was wrong and that I needed to be there. I put on a flight suit and arrived at the outpost. While doing this, I start to initiate an organizational process and I notified those who need to come to the discussion called ‘opening of combat’. To tell you that I knew what we were doing? I did not know. I told them that planes would probably arrive from abroad, but beyond that I didn’t know. The uncertainty was great. The organizational culture and mental preparedness we had in the Air Force helped us deal with this situation. There I was exposed to the situations in the book a little bit because I didn’t want to offend anyone mentioned in the book.” .
One of the situations that Lashham remembers and is presented in the book is his visit to the outpost of then Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: “He came and demanded answers from the operational forces and all the emergency services. I remember a situation in which he reprimanded the commander of the Air Force, Colonel Ido Nehushtan, who was the highest official in the force, and angrily asked why not all the planes in the air helped put out the fire, why didn’t all the planes from abroad that were meant to help arrive, etc. I don’t judge him because he reprimanded From the professional position of the person in charge of the event. It was a crisis situation, where the senior personality comes and wants results. You can’t explain to him that you don’t really know how to conduct yourself in such a situation, because it’s not interesting in times of need.”
As part of his position, he was responsible as mentioned for receiving the planes from abroad that were harnessed to extinguish the fire, including from Azerbaijan, Italy, the United States, Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Egypt, Spain, France, Canada, Cyprus , Croatia, Romania, Russia and Switzerland. “On Friday at five in the morning, when I already knew what the four Greek planes that were expected to arrive looked like, I received a call from the commander of the Air Force on duty, Brigadier General Hagi Topolansky, who told me: ‘I want you to make a video call with the commander of the control unit and the control representatives to understand how to fly above the fire,'” he recalls.
“Until that point I didn’t touch this thing because I was busy with how I was going to pick them up. Then it hit me all of a sudden that we have no idea how they will fly over the Carmel. I didn’t have the time or ability to do it because I was busy getting organized, and I called Segya, my former squadron commander , and I put him in charge of that video conference. He came out thoughtful after the conference and said: ‘We need to build aids, but we need to do them in English.’ He built all the aids, and at one point I told him: ‘I already know what the plane looks like. Maybe a An Israeli pilot who will fly with them and know how to talk to the control. This will make learning the terrain easier.’ , D. and I met with a Greek pilot and I presented him with the plan, and he was enthusiastic that an Israeli fighter pilot would join the Greek guys who were going to fly. Then a car arrived, with the commander of the air force and the commander of the base in it.”
“The air force commander was on the phone, but the base commander wondered what D was doing here. I explained to him, and he started raising his voice and scolded me. He said that he would not put an Israeli pilot and risk him on a mission with Greek pilots that he did not know how they behave in such situations. Then the commander of the Air Force, Nehushtan, ended the phone call, asked what the shouting was about and said: ‘Excellent idea.’ over the other’s head,” he added.
The Carmel disaster (photo: Max Yellinson)sense of duty
The new book consists of two parts: the first part gives an intimate glimpse from the point of view of Lashem into the management of the incident in the Carmel fire from the beginning, through the planning and organization of planes, planes and ground forces to the control of senior managers from the military and political levels. The second part brings relevant managerial insights following the disaster, and through stories and personal experiences of key figures.
How much does the disaster accompany you on a daily basis?
“There is a kind of mission for me to tell this story because there is something here that must not disappear from our national memory. There are many victims of trauma from this event, people who have not been able to function since the fire, so I feel that there is something here far beyond coming and telling a personal experience. It’s a powerful story that covers all types of crisis, and it has insights that meet everyone. Everyone can relate to this story. I feel I had to write it.”
Today are we better prepared for such a crisis?
“If I look at the broad perspective of a country, it shook us on an extreme level. This forced the country to prepare for this kind of disaster. Today we are not in the same situation as we were. If, God forbid, such a disaster happens, the conduct will be better than in 2010, but to tell you that we will know how to conduct ourselves perfectly? probably not. It depends on the people who will be there, the magnitude of the disaster and other parameters. This is something that needs to be addressed. After all, we recently also saw in the Miron disaster, despite a thousand differences, that the issue of who takes responsibility returned again, and the symptoms of the ills of Israeli society met us there as well.”
To purchase the book at Headstart, click here