Firefighters burnt out with overwork

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
More than 1,500 fires have broken out in Ra'anana, Kfar Saba and Hod Hasharon in the past 10 months, and the Kfar Saba fire station, which is responsible for the entire area, says it is desperately short of firefighters, reports www.local.co.il. The station says that with almost 160 fires occurring in those three cities alone every month, it needs several more firefighters in order to be able to cope with the workload. According to the report, the Kfar Saba Municipal Firefighters' Union is responsible for fighting fires in 12 local authorities, including Ra'anana, Kfar Saba, Hod Hasharon, Kohav Yair-Tsur Yigal, Tel Mond, Jaljulya and several other Arab towns. In the past 10 months, Kfar Saba firefighters attended 1,584 blazes in the three largest cities in the district, Ra'anana, Kfar Saba and Hod Hasharon. Almost half those fires - 715 - were in Ra'anana alone, with 453 fires in Kfar Saba and 416 in Hod Hasharon. In many cases, the Kfar Saba firefighters had to call other fire stations for assistance. A spokesman said the station was seriously short of manpower and required at least 15 more firefighters in order to be able to cope. No response to the request was reported.