Israeli firefighter battling LA fires says California has similarity to home that could give her advantage

Yahoo

26-01-2025

A delegation of Israeli firefighting experts spent a week in California helping American crews combat the Palisades inferno, and one member of the team described the experience as an "honor" and an opportunity to give back.
Li-shay Amor, a 34-year-old Israeli firefighter, arrived in Los Angeles last week with a team of other fire experts from her country who worked alongside local units and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services using "advanced Israeli technology to help contain the fires," the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles said in a statement on X.
"It doesn't matter if you live in Los Angeles, if you live in Miami, if you live in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem. We are all human beings. We need to be together. We need to help each other," Amor told Fox News Digital in an interview.
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With just a day's notice, Amor hopped on a 15-hour flight across the world, leaving her three young children behind with her husband because she believed in the importance of helping her "brothers" in America.
"You feel that you must do something because …. you see all the damage," she said. "The first thing that you think about is … those people … those citizens that, they've got everything, their houses. And right now, they … have nothing. Everything burned to the ground."
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Amor described witnessing devastation upon her arrival in Los Angeles as American firefighters informed her team about the work that had already been done and what they were continuing to do.
"The moment that we arrived over there and that we arrived to the field and to the fires, we met all those firefighters. They opened their mind, and they opened their hearts … to let us in, to explain to us, to hear what we have to say to them … from our knowledge," she explained.
"We came with a group … that everyone is an expert. We've got a logistics expert. And we've got someone that is in operation. And we've got someone with expertise in wildfires."
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The Israeli experts were sent to Los Angeles with the assistance of the Emergency Volunteers Project, a nonprofit organization funded by federations and donors and established 16 years ago to aid Israeli citizens and emergency services during times of national emergency, according to its website.
"EVP has sent over 180 firefighters, over 250 medical personnel and a few hundred civilians to Israel since the war started. So … given the opportunity to pay back the favor, they kind of jumped right at it," Scott Goldstein, the chief operating officer of disaster relief operations with Emergency Volunteers Project, told Fox News Digital, referring to the Israeli firefighters' willingness to help.
"We have a simple mission — save lives," Goldstein previously told Fox News about EVP.
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"Those American firefighters … came here to Israel … to help us and to support us," Amor said. "This is my turn to give the same love … like all my American brothers did for us since Oct. 7."
When asked about her own work in Los Angeles, Amor praised American firefighters on the ground.
"They are so brave," she said emphatically. "They are actually heroes. … They do everything that they can to rescue and to save."
Amor repeatedly described the strong communication and collaboration between the Israeli and American firefighters.
"The special relationship between America and Israel on display," the House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans posted on X Saturday.
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Both Amor and Goldstein mentioned the significance of the similar landscapes in Israel and California.
"The terrain is identical," Goldstein said. "If you go to most places in Israel, it pretty much looks like that area."
Amor explained that she grew up in Haifa, where, like in parts of Los Angeles, the location includes mountains, the beach and houses perched between trees. She then described a 2016 fire in Haifa, which forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes and said her "knowledge" from that disaster allowed her to come to Los Angeles "to help and to support."
On her long flight home to Israel, Amor reflected on her time volunteering in Los Angeles and the brave people on the ground in LA, fighting and risking their lives every day.
"My only thought was, 'Wow, what an amazing world we all live in,'" she said. "What amazing firefighters. What amazing people."Original article source: Israeli firefighter battling LA fires says California has similarity to home that could give her advantage