KIEV, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine has dispatched two firefighting planes to help Israel in battling the forest fires that have been raging across the country, the Ukrainian State Service for Emergencies said on Friday.
The An-32 planes will join the multinational firefighting efforts near the city of Haifa and will spend up to seven days in Israel.
The aerial vehicles were dispatched by the order of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the request from the Israeli side.
The An-32 plane is a multipurpose aircraft, capable of carrying up to 8,000 litres of water in four reservoirs.
The fires that started on Tuesday in Neve Shalom, a community in Israel between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, amidst exceptionally dry and windy weather have spread to more than a dozen of other communities and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
