Wildfires hit Turkey’s Mediterranean coast as temperatures soar

ANKARA — Wildfires are raging across Turkey’s Mediterranean coastal province of Antalya, wounding six people on Tuesday and forcing over a dozen families to evacuate . 

Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said Tuesday that the fire, which broke out late Monday local time near the popular tourist town of Kemer in the Antalya region, engulfed more than 120 hectares (300 acres) of forest. 

Six people have been hospitalized due to smoke inhalation, Turkey’s private Demiroren News Agency said.

Ersoy said the blazes didn’t spread to any residential areas, but a hospital and 10 houses near the Degirmendere neighborhood were evacuated as a precaution.

More than 20 helicopters dropping water, 10 firefighter planes and about 1,000 emergency workers were involved in the efforts to extinguish the blaze, Ersoy said, adding that they hope the wildfire would be under control on Tuesday.

Temperatures in Turkey exceeded 40 degrees Celcius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in most of the country at the beginning of this week.

Fueled by unusually high temperatures and wind, wildfires have destroyed more than a thousand acres of forest land over the past week, as Turkish authorities are scrambling to extinguish several blazes across the country amid warnings of a greater risk of wildfires caused by a heat wave.

Speaking after a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that even slight negligence could lead to catastrophe. "While we encountered 265 wildfires between June 1 and July 24 last year, there have been 358 wildfires in the same period of this year," he said.

Noting that Turkey expanded its firefighting fleet with two firefighter planes that the country purchased from Russia, Erdogan said that currently 24 planes, 100 helicopters and 10 drones were involved in efforts to extinguish the blazes across the country.

Wildfire diplomacy

As extreme heat waves intensify particularly in southern Europe, Turkey’s Aegean neighbor Greece has also become one of the worst-hit countries by wildfires. Speaking on Monday, Erdogan said Turkey dispatched two planes and a helicopter to Greece to support firefighting efforts on the Greek island of Rhodes where emergency workers are scrambling to extinguish a massive wildfire that started eight days ago.

As the blaze has forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate nearby, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that new orders were issued on the islands of Corfu and Evia due to the wildfires.