Carmel fire

Today's guest blogger is Prof. Dan Yakir. Until recently, Yakir was head of the Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department at the Institute, and he heads the Yatir Forest research station, which monitors, among other things, carbon exchange in a man-made semi-arid pine forest. This piece comes in the wake of the worst fire in Israel's history, in which extreme drought, winds and a long fire season that depleted fire retardant supplies combined to flame a few embers into a major conflagration that burned thousands of acres of natural scrub forest.Tens of human lives were lost, many…