A major fire broke out in northern Israel Thursday, setting thousands of acres of land alight and forcing the evacuation of two villages and a prison.

The blaze, in the Carmel forest area, on a hill bordering the port city of Haifa, was not yet under control, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told the German Press Agency dpa in the mid-afternoon, several hours after the fire started.

He said residents of the village of Beit Oren, about 10 kilometres south-east of Haifa, had been evacuated.

Some 40 families from Usafiya, a Druze village about four kilometres east of Beit Oren, were also told to leave their homes and a nearby hotel also evacuated its guests.

The prison services also began transferring all 500 inmates from the Damon prison, in the path of the fire, to other detention facilities.

The fire sent up huge columns of smoke, which were visible on the coast, on the other side of the hill.

Rosenfeld said it was still to early to determine how the fire had started, but said arson was not being ruled out.

(YWN Israel Desk)