A devastating fire killed at least 40 people on Thursday when it ripped through a forest near Israel's northern city of Haifa, prompting urgent calls for international help to tackle the blaze.

Police said at least 40 people died in the inferno, which officials said was the worst in Israel's 62-year history.

Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance service confirmed they had recovered 36 bodies, and they were still searching for others listed as missing.

"Most of the dead were on board the bus," spokesman Zachi Heller said of a coach carrying prison guards which was caught in the fire.

Heller did not say how many more people were missing, but MDA had earlier confirmed the list included police and firefighters.

A police source said all the dead were prison guards who had been en route to evacuate prisoners from Damon jail in the middle of the Carmel national park.

"All those who were killed were on board the bus. They were all prison guards," he told AFP.

Haifa's police chief was among the injured, with medical and police sources saying she was in "critical condition."

Twelve hours after the fire broke out, it was still raging out of control despite intensive efforts to control it, with fire officials saying the inferno had incinerated at least 8,000 dunams (2,000 acres, 800 hectares) of land.

"It's very big, it's now on the west side of the Carmel mountains," fire service spokesman Yoram Levy told AFP. "It's spreading."

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP "at least 5,000 people" had been evacuated from 10 towns and villages across the area, as well as from three prisons.

The fire service issued an urgent call for all of Israel's 1,500 firefighters to report to the area, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Russia for help.

Offers of assistance came pouring in, with Greece pledging to send four firefighting planes, Cyprus offering a police helicopter and another firefighting aircraft, while Bulgaria was to send fly in 90 firefighters.

The foreign ministry said it had also received pledges of help from Romania, Azerbaijan, France, Russia, Croatia and Turkey.

As night fell, fire and rescue chief Shimon Romeach said the blaze was still raging out of control and efforts to curb it were being hampered by strong winds that were likely to become even stronger at dawn.

"I cannot paint a positive picture," he told Channel 1 television.

Efforts to battle the inferno were also hit by a national shortage of airborne fire retardant, police said, following a spate of forest fires over what has been the hottest summer since records began.

"This is a disaster on a scale we have not experienced before," said Netanyahu, who later visited the scene of the blaze.

Dramatic footage from the scene showed flames rushing across the forest floor, engulfing trees and sending thick plumes of smoke barrelling into the air.

Firefighters wearing breathing equipment trained jets of water onto the blaze, as ash thrown skywards by the fire rained back down on them.

An AFP photographer counted at least 20 charred bodies lying on orange stretchers by the side of a road, the clothes burnt off their bodies and only their boots intact.

Other footage showed the gutted remains of the bus, which one eyewitness said had been consumed by the flames.

"Anyone who's ever seen a firestorm will know. They could not survive it; they had no protection; they just fell to the road and burned alive," fireman Dudu Vanunu told Channel 2 television.

Police said prisoners were evacuated from three facilities in the area, as were 170 patients from a psychiatric unit in Tirat HaCarmel, as flames swept through the pine forest covering the Carmel hill ridge, one of Israel's most popular beauty spots.

Fire and rescue officials said it was not immediately clear what caused the blaze, although police spokesman Rosenfeld said they had not ruled out arson.

President Shimon Peres sent his condolences to those affected by the tragedy, and Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad also extended his sympathy during a phone call, a statement from Peres' office said.

After a long, dry summer Israel is now experiencing an unusually warm and dry autumn.

The Israel Meteorological Service listed the midday temperature in the Haifa area on Thursday as 31 degrees Celsius (87 Fahrenheit) with winds reaching 30 kilometres per hour (17 mph).

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