A forestry worker injured in a wildfire in the western Turkish province of Izmir has died from his injuries, raising the death toll in recent days from the fires to three, as emergency crews also continued to battle a blaze in a province bordering Syria.
Turkiye sent two firefighting aircraft to help battle wildfires in neighbouring Syria on Saturday.
Worker Ragip Sahin “who was injured while fighting the fire in Odemis and was being treated in hospital, has died”, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said on Saturday in a post on X. Yumakli also said the blaze in Odemis had been brought under control by Friday evening alongside six other wildfires, mostly in western and central Turkiye.
He added that firefighters were still trying to control a blaze in the southern coastal area of Dortyol in Hatay province.
Turkiye was mostly spared the recent searing heatwaves that engulfed the rest of southern Europe, but firefighters have battled more than 600 fires since June 26 in the drought-hit nation, which have been prompted by high winds.
The fire in Odemis, about 100km (60 miles) east of the resort city of Izmir, had on Thursday killed a bedridden 81-year-old man and a backhoe operator who died while helping firefighting efforts.
In a video on X, Odemis Mayor Mustafa Turan said the fire had ravaged about 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres) of land. “The fire came violently to this area, there is nothing left to burn. About 5,000 hectares was reduced to ashes,” said Turan.
On Monday, rescuers evacuated more than 50,000 people to escape a string of fires.
“According to the authorities, the fires that lasted for four days started in: Tosunlar village … you can still see smoke coming out from this evacuated village,” said Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Odemis.
“Nothing is left in this village, no one is living here and there is nothing left to reside in. After the fires erupted due to electrical cables in this village, it quickly spread to the nearby villages on this side and then to other villages. Just on the first night [of the wildfires], authorities had to evacuate five villages,” she added.
“For citizens of Turkiye living in the valleys and forests, life is becoming more difficult every year as climate change brings more wildfires. And this year, wildfires came earlier than expected to Turkiye,” said Koseoglu.
Turkiye’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 44 suspects have been detained in relation to 65 fires that broke out across the country, which led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and damaged some 200 homes.
According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) website, there have been 96 wildfires in Turkiye this year that have ravaged more than 49,652 hectares (122,700 acres) of land.
Turkiye sends help to Syria
In the meantime, in Hatay province, bordering Syria, emergency crews continued fighting a blaze that broke out Friday afternoon in the Dortyol district near a residential area and rapidly intensified due to strong winds, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Some 920 homes had been evacuated as a precaution against the advancing flames, Governor Mustafa Musatli said late Friday.
Turkiye also sent two firefighting aircraft on Saturday to help neighbouring Syria battle wildfires in its northwest Latakia region.
Eleven fire trucks and water support vehicles were also dispatched, according to Raed al-Saleh, the Syrian Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management.
“Sudden wildfires in Turkey” delayed their arrival by almost a day, said al-Saleh in a post on X.
“The Syrian Civil Defence Forces, the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, and local crews have been doing their best to contain the situation,” Al Jazeera’s Abdullah Okaily reported from Damascus.
“Wildfires have been a worldwide phenomenon, but it’s been made even worse by the droughts that Syria has seen in the past year” and the outdated equipment that crews are forced to use in these high-risk locations across Syria, he added.
The situation is complicated further “by the Syrian context of the war of the past 14 years because now we’re seeing explosive remnants, mines and ammunitions scattered across the forests, exploding due to these fires”, said Okaily.
Referring to the equipment provided by Turkiye, Okaily said: “Syria does not have this kind of equipment, so this is crucial to contain these fires and put them out.”
Experts say human-driven climate change is causing more frequent and intense wildfires and other natural disasters.
