Twisp man fought conflagration in Israel

TWISP, Wash. – A storied Twisp smokejumper added another adventurous firefighting accomplishment to his résumé in early December when he flew to Israel to help douse that country’s most disastrous forest fire.

Bill Moody, 71, updated Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the firefighting strategy and later received a personal thank you from Netanyahu for his help stopping the Mount Carmel forest fire. The fire claimed at least 44 lives, caused the evacuation of more than 17,000 people and burned about 12,000 acres of forest in northern Israel from Dec. 2 to 5.

Moody, a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper for 33 years and later manager of the North Cascades Smokejumper base in Winthrop, is a firefighting consultant for Evergreen International Aviation’s Boeing 747 Supertanker. The airplane is the largest air tanker in the world. It can drop up to 20,000 gallons of water and retardant on fires, nearly twice the capacity of the next largest air tanker and eight times the capacity of planes commonly used to fight forest fires.

Moody flew with the 747 from a base in Tucson, Ariz., on Dec. 3. He directed two 20,000-gallon drops on the fire Dec. 4 that helped bring the fire under control. Moody said Netanyahu flew in to Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv in a helicopter under heavy guard Dec. 4 after the air tanker’s second retardant drop.

Netanyahu talked to Moody about the use of retardant and the strategy that was used to run a retardant line around the perimeter of the fire. Netanyahu went inside the 747 to also talk to the pilot, Cliff Hale of Dallas.

“He asked a lot of questions and thanked us for our work. He asked me how my Hebrew was and I had to answer, ‘Not good,’ ” Moody said. The prime minister visited with them for about an hour, Moody said. “He’s a very impressive man who commands a lot of respect. He was very well briefed on the fire.”

The Mount Carmel fire spread quickly through Israel’s Carmel Hai-Bar Nature Reserve. The area is close to the Mediterranean coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Israel put out a call for international help after a busload of prison guards, en route to evacuate a prison in the area, caught on fire. News reports said the fire claimed 44 lives in all. Nearly all of the victims were on the bus. Many others were injured.

Eleven different countries sent help. The fire was controlled Dec. 5, thanks to the air tanker drops, international help and a change in the weather. The fire is believed to have been started by an illegal garbage fire, dry weather and strong winds, according to news reports.

Moody said he got the call Dec. 2 and flew to Arizona to meet up with the air tanker, which is owned by Evergreen International Aviation of McMinnville, Ore. He has worked as a firefighting consultant for the company since 2003. He has traveled with the 747 to foreign countries before for demonstrations. This was the first time the plane was used to stop an actual fire overseas.

“They wanted someone to instruct pilots for the new 747 program. Going from smokejumping aircraft to this has been quite a jump. It’s been exciting to be involved in a new paradigm of operations,” Moody said. Evergreen is the only company in the world using a Boeing 747 to fight fires. Previously, the largest U.S. airplane used for firefighting has been the McDonnell-Douglas DC-10, capable of dropping 11,000 gallons of water and retardant. A Russian-made air tanker can drop 10,000 gallons. Most of the planes used in fighting forest fires can carry a maximum load of between 2,000 and 2,500 gallons, he said.

Moody started working for the Okanogan National Forest as a smokejumper right out of high school in 1957. He parachuted into fires for 33 years and managed the North Cascades Smokejumper base from 1972 to 1989. His 610 fire jumps was once a record. He continues to work for the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest as an air attack group supervisor. He wrote a book about history of smokejumping, “Spittin’ in the Wind.”