Police were active until a few hours prior to the writing of this article, to rescue 30 trapped vacationers from a fire that took place near Amnon Beach on the north side of the Kinneret. Hikers who were camping out on the beach were surrounded by fire and rescued by the maritime police in three trips.

Three additional fires took place in the area on Tuesday. One of the fires took place near Gesher Arik.

In another incident, a fire took place near the Mahanayim junction of Highway 90 where police closed part of the highway and rescued hikers from the blaze. A third incident took place near the Gome junction on Highway 90, just south of Kiryat Shmona. There too, police closed part of the Highway as a result of the fire.

A spokesperson for the Fire Department said: “Dozens of teams of firefighters from the Tevaria chapter, together with fire-extinguishing planes, have been working for numerous hours to put out a large brush fire that ignited between Capernaum and the Jordan River Park. The fire expanded from a number of different ignition points all along Highway 87. The fire spread on the eastern side of the Highway towards Amnon beach where a number of hikers were evacuated. Firefighters are still battling the blaze to make sure that it doesn’t spread.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)