Israeli firefighters conclude Macedonia aid effort

22-member delegation set to return to Israel after battling spate of wildfires in landlocked Balkan nation.


The Israeli firefighting team helping Macedonia battle a spate of summer wildfires concluded operations on Thursday and is to return to Israel over the weekend.

The delegation of the Israel Police, which operates the country’s firefighting planes, has been in Macedonia since last week. It carried out some 40 flight hours helping to extinguish a number of wildfires.

The 22-person delegation included two firefighting planes, and two Israeli Air Force transport planes that flew the delegation to Macedonia, according to Channel 2.


It dropped 120,000 liters of fire retardant on areas where blazes raged in the landlocked Balkan nation.

This is the second time in the past month that Israel has helped extinguish fires in nearby countries. Two weeks ago, a similar delegation of two firefighting planes flew to Montenegro to help battle a wave of fires that hit the country.