Some 6,000 dunams of natural woodland and planted forest, comprising about half a million trees have been burned since the beginning of the fighting in the north, according to the Jewish National Fund forestry experts. Among the trees burned are oaks, terebinths, pines, and cypresses. Another 25,000 dunams of grazing land have also been lost to the flames.

About five percent, or some 1,500 dunams of the Birya forest has burned, and about one-third of the forests of the Naphtali ridge above Kiryat Shmona, consisting of about 2,500 dunams. Another 1,000 dunams burned in the Beit Keshet forest in central Galilee, 800 dunams of the Shlomi forest in the northwestern Galilee, and about 700 dunams on Mount Meron.

The JNF estimates the cost of rehabilitating the forests at some NIS 3,000 per dunam during the first two years. “Even if we replanted all the ancient trees that were hit,” the JNF’s Omri Boneh said, “it will take 50 to 60 years to return the forests to their state before the fighting.”