The fires have become the most visible sign of the escalating conflict on the border between Lebanon and Israel.

CHEBAA, Lebanon — As ceasefire negotiations in Gaza fail and there is no clear end to the conflict on the Lebanese-Israeli border, daily exchanges of strikes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces have sparked wildfires that are ravaging forests and farmland on both sides of the front line.

The fires, compounded by supply shortages and security concerns, have consumed thousands of hectares of land in southern Lebanon and northern Israel, becoming one of the most visible signs of the escalating conflict.

The risk of a full-scale war, with catastrophic consequences for populations on both sides of the border, is increasingly real. Some fear that fires caused by a wider conflict could also cause irreversible damage to the territory.

Charred remains in Lebanon

In Israel, images of fires sparked by Hezbollah rockets sparked public outrage and prompted Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to declare last month that it was “time for all of Lebanon to burn.”

Much of it was already on fire.

The fires in Lebanon began in late April – earlier than the usual fire season – and have ravaged largely rural areas along the border.

The Sunni town of Shebaa, nestled in the mountains on Lebanon’s southeastern border, has been little hit by Hezbollah and has not been targeted as frequently as other border villages. But shelling still reverberates regularly, and in the mountains above it, the ridges once lined with oak trees are charred and bare.

In a cherry orchard on the outskirts of the city, clumps of fruit hang amid yellowing leaves after a fire sparked by an Israeli strike tore through the area. Firefighters and local residents, some using their shirts to douse the flames, kept the fire from reaching homes and the nearby U.N. peacekeeping center.

“The grass will grow back next year, but the trees are gone,” says Moussa Saab, whose family owns the orchard. “You have to find young trees and plant them, and you have to wait five or seven years before you can start harvesting.”

Saab refuses to leave with his wife and eight-year-old daughter. They cannot afford to live elsewhere and fear they will not be able to return, as his parents did when they left the disputed Shebaa Farms area, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and is claimed by Lebanon.

Burn Scars in Israel

The slopes of Mount Meron, Israel's second highest mountain and home to an air base, have long been covered in native oak trees, a dense grove providing shelter for wild pigs, gazelles and rare species of flowers and wildlife.

The green slopes are now interrupted by three new burn scars, the largest measuring a few hundred square metres, the remains of a Hezbollah drone bomb shot down a few weeks ago. Rangers fear the devastation is only just beginning.

“The damage this year is a dozen times worse than this year,” said Shai Koren of the Northern District of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Looking at the slopes of Meron, Koren said he did not expect this forest to survive the summer: “You can take a before and after picture.”

Numbers and weapons

Since the start of the war, the Israeli army has recorded 5,450 launches towards northern Israel. According to the Israeli research and education center Alma, most of the initial launches were short-range anti-tank missiles, but Hezbollah's use of drones has increased.

In Lebanon, officials and human rights groups accuse Israel of firing white phosphorus incendiary shells at residential areas, in addition to regular artillery bombardments and airstrikes.

The Israeli military says it uses white phosphorus only as a smokescreen, not to target populated areas. But even in open areas, the shells can start fast-spreading fires.

The border clashes began on October 8, a day after Hamas's incursion into southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and sparked war in Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 37,000 people have been killed there.

Hezbollah has begun launching rockets into northern Israel to open what it calls a “support front” for Hamas, to push Israeli forces out of Gaza.

Israel retaliated and the attacks spread throughout the border region. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed. In Lebanon, more than 450 people – mostly combatants, but also more than 80 civilians and non-combatants – were killed.

The exchanges have intensified since early May, when Israel launched its incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The period coincided with the start of the hot and dry wildfire season.

Since May, Hezbollah strikes have set 8,700 hectares (about 21,500 acres) of northern Israel ablaze, according to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Eli Mor of the Israel Fire and Rescue Service said the drones, which are much more accurate than rockets, “often come one after the other, the first with a camera and the second firing.”

“Every launch poses a real threat,” Mor added.

In southern Lebanon, about 4,000 hectares have burned because of Israeli strikes, said George Mitri of the University of Balamand's Land and Natural Resources Program. In the previous two years, he said, the total area burned in Lebanon was 500 to 600 hectares per year.

Fire intervention

Security concerns hamper the response in the crucial early hours of a fire. Firefighting aircraft are largely grounded for fear of being shot down. On the ground, firefighters often cannot move without military escort.

“If we lose half an hour or an hour, it might take us another day or two to control the fire,” said Mohammad Saadeh, head of the Shebaa civil defense station. The station was called out to 27 fires in three weeks last month, almost as many as in a normal year.

Across the border, Moran Arinovsky, a former cook, is now deputy commander of the Kibbutz Manara emergency response team. Along with about a dozen others, he has fought more than 20 fires in the past two months.

Mor, of the Israel Fire and Rescue Service, said firefighters often have to triage.

“Sometimes we have to give up open areas that don’t endanger people or cities,” Mor said.

The border areas are largely depopulated. The Israeli government evacuated a 4-kilometer strip at the beginning of the war, leaving only soldiers and medics behind. In Lebanon, there is no official evacuation order, but large areas have become virtually uninhabitable.

Some 95,000 people in Lebanon and 60,000 people in Israel have been displaced over the past nine months.

Kibbutz Sde Nehemia has not been evacuated, and Efrat Eldan Schechter says some days she watches helplessly as plumes of smoke approach her home.

“There is a psychological impact, knowing and feeling that you are alone,” she said, because firefighters cannot access certain areas.

Israeli cowboys, who herd cattle in the Golan Heights, often band together to fight fires when firefighters cannot arrive quickly.

Schechter noted that the images of the flames ravaging the hills have drawn more attention to the conflict in her backyard, rather than just the Gaza war. “It’s only since the fires started that we’re on the front pages of the newspapers in Israel,” she said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that with the fighting in Gaza ending, Israel would send more troops to its northern border. That could open a new front and increase the risk of more destructive wildfires.

Koren says natural fires are part of the forest's normal life cycle and can promote ecodiversity, but conflict-induced fires are not. “It's when fires happen over and over again that the damage is done,” he said.

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Lidman reported from northern Israel.