Hi,
Fire clearing minefields is a thing if live anywhere near the northern border of Israel or anywhere along the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley. There July and August bring a very specific seasonal rhythm.
It’s not just the suffocating heat, the yellowed thorns covering every field, or the eternal struggle to keep the AC from giving up entirely. It’s the sudden, heavy BOOM that echoes across the area on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
In most parts of the world, a loud explosion in the distance would prompt an immediate panic, an emergency broadcast, or at least a frantic neighborhood group chat.
Here? You pause for a fraction of a second, look at the horizon, see a thin plume of grey smoke rising from the ridge covered in smoke, and casually turn back to your iced coffee: “Ah, the minefields are on fire again.”
Every summer, like clockwork, the brush fires start. All it takes is a dry patch of thorns (koztim), a relentless 38°C sun, and a light breeze. The fire creeps quietly across the yellow hills until it crosses an old, fenced-off zone marked with those faded red triangular signs: סכנה! מוקשים! (Danger! Mines!).
What follows is an unintended firework display courtesy of old Syrian or Israeli minefields laid down decades ago. A dry bush catches fire, heats the earth, and pop – a 1970s anti-personal mine decides its time has finally come. Then another one. Then an anti-tank mine goes off with enough force to rattle the windows three hundred meters away.
It is a uniquely Israeli phenomenon: nature taking care of demining operations through sheer, unadulterated summer heat. Firefighters stand at a safe distance with their water hoses—because nobody in their right mind enters an active minefield while it’s literally exploding—and watch the fire clean out ordnance that combat enginees (sappers) haven’t touched in fifty years.
How mad is it that this becomes completely normal? That we categorize distant explosions by “Is it an interception, an artillery drill, or just a bushfire in the minefield?”
Eventually, the smoke clears, the wind dies down, and the fire brigade monitors the perimeter until the last embers fade into black ash. The hills are a little darker, the border is a little safer, and everyone goes back to complaining about the humidity. Just another summer day on the edge.
Take Care
Gad
A fire clearing minefields near Margaliot in the Upper Galile
Fire clearing minefields near Ghajar
Clearing minefields in a more standard way