Two Emergency Ministry’s Beriyev Be-200ChS planes with a Ministry’s task force aboard have today taken off from the city of Anapa for Tel-Aviv, the capital city of Israel to extinguish wildfires there.

Following the order of the RF President, the Emergency Ministry’s team is on its way to Israel at a request filed by Israel. By now the two jets have taken off from the Anapa airport and are en route to the airport of Ben Gurion in Tel-Aviv via the city of Athens.

Upon arrival in Israel the Russian responders will get to fighting wildfires right away. The crews of both planes were trained to work under extreme conditions and have huge experience in putting out wildfires.

Russian Emergency Ministry’s jets have been used not only in Russia, but abroad, including Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and other countries. This autumn, the planes were successfully used to deal with devastating fires in Portugal. The amphibious Be-200ChS plane is capable of refilling its tanks with 12 tons of water while gliding within 14 seconds and then drops it on fires at a speed of 250 km/h within 0.8-1 second. On one tank of fuel the plane can drop up to 270 tons of water working up to 100 km away from an airfield which is a unique tactical and economic feature.

Emergency Ministry’s responders helped Israel to deal with fires in 2010. Then, Russian planes put out large wildfires near Haifa.

Massive wildfires hit several regions of Israel this week. They are now sweeping through the area around the settlement of Nataf, next to Jerusalem, bushes and forests are burning in Latruna between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. The north of the country is also suffering from wildfires raging on approaches to the towns of Haifa, Hadera and Sikhron Ya’akov. Israeli authorities have declared a state of emergency and evacuated people from several regions around Sikhron Ya’akov. Police is asking people not to come back to their homes until 25 November.