A wild fire swept through part of the extensive Jewish cemetery in Iaşi, Romania this week, but the blaze did not damage grave monuments and firefighters were able to halt the spread by beating out the flames.
Lucia Apostol of the Federation of Jewish Communities told JHE that: “The fire started from a candle in the Christian Cemetery nearby and was spread out by the wind on a small portion of the Jewish cemetery. Nothing significant [was affected], firemen stopped it without [using a] water jet.”
The local news site Ziarul de Iasi quoted firefighters as saying that the flames had spread rapidly through the very tall, dry grass and weeds that choked the overgrown cemetery and had reached nearby vineyards before several firefighting crews contained the blaze. A nearby Christian cemetery was not affected.
The Iaşi Jewish cemetery, off Pacurari street at the northwest edge of the city, was founded in the 19th century and has scores of thousands of graves. The largest Jewish cemetery in Romania, it includes large mass graves of Holocaust victims as well as a section honoring Jewish soldiers who fell in World War II.
The cemetery was hit by a similar fire in 2012.