Haredi Volunteer Firefighters Join Firefighters at Apartment Blaze in Haifa

Shortly before midnight, a fire broke out in a penthouse apartment on the fifth floor on Mikor Baruch Street in Haifa. Members of the Haredi volunteer unit of Fire and Rescue from the Satmar Vizhnitz Hasidic group were the first to arrive at the scene and assisted firefighters with extinguishing the blaze and rescuing anyone trapped.

Shortly before midnight last night, Wednesday, urgent calls were received at Fire and Rescue District 102 operations center in the Coastal District about a fire in a penthouse apartment on the fifth floor on Mikor Baruch Street in Haifa. Due to serious concern that people might be trapped in the residential building late at night, the operations center dispatched reinforced firefighting and rescue teams from the Haifa regional station.

Because of their geographical proximity, members of the Haredi volunteer unit of Fire and Rescue from the Satmar Vizhnitz Hasidic group were the first to reach the scene. As an essential support force, the volunteers began initial actions to move civilians away from the danger area and provide life-saving safety instructions to residents in the open area. When the firefighting teams arrived, the volunteers joined them and quickly and accurately directed them to the incident point on the upper floor, thereby helping shorten the forces' response times.

Firefighters from the Haifa station, who managed the operational scene, laid water lines and immediately went up to the rooftop floor to stop the fire from spreading. The operational teams carried out intensive actions that included careful and thorough stripping of the outer drywall walls, in order to expose and extinguish hidden sources of fire burning inside.

At the same time, firefighters conducted thorough and complex searches throughout the building to rule out trapped people, until full control was achieved over the incident, which ended with no injuries.

The Fire and Rescue Service said, "The Haredi volunteer unit in the neighborhood repeatedly proves its importance as a tremendous support and combat aid force, helping firefighters in their supreme mission to protect human life."

Fire and Rescue also emphasized once again the critical importance of installing smoke detectors in every home, which alert in real time and allow a quick escape in the event of a fire, and have repeatedly proven to save lives.