Raging wildfires in Turkey kill at least 10 firefighters and rescue workers
The five forestry workers and five members of the AKUT rescue organization died while trying to put out the wildfire raging through a forested area of Eskisehir province, Yumakli said. At least 14 other rescuers and forestry workers were hospitalized, he said.
The deaths bring the number of fatalities in wildfires that have flared amid strong winds, high temperatures and dry conditions so far in the country this year to 13.
The minister said the wind suddenly changed direction, causing the flames to shift rapidly and surround the forest workers. It was not immediately clear what caused the fire.
Yumakli said firefighters were currently battling seven wildfires in Turkey, including the one in Eskisehir, adding that extreme heat and volatile wind conditions also were expected in Turkey on Thursday.
'Starting tomorrow, we are facing extraordinary temperatures and extreme wind shifts. Once again, I call on all 86 million citizens to be vigilant and exercise extra caution,' he said.
In a message of condolence to the families, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the victims had fought 'to protect our forests at cost of their lives.'
Two prosecutors were assigned to investigate the incident, the country's justice minister said.
Turkey has been battling wildfires since June 26.
An elderly man and two forestry workers were killed in a wildfire that raged near the town of Odemis, in Izmir province, earlier this month.
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Los Angeles Times
24 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Wildfires threaten major city in Turkey as much of southern Europe burns
ISTANBUL — Wildfires that have engulfed Turkey for weeks threatened the country's fourth-largest city Sunday, forcing more than 3,500 people to flee their homes and leaving two people dead. Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro are also battling blazes fed by unusually high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds. Overnight fires in the forested mountains surrounding Bursa in northwestern Turkey spread rapidly, tinting the night sky over the city's eastern suburbs with a red glow. Dozens of severe wildfires have hit the country daily since late June, with the government declaring the two western provinces of Izmir and Bilecik as disaster areas Friday. Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli told reporters late Sunday that 3,515 people had been safely evacuated from villages to the northeast of Bursa as more than 1,900 firefighters battled the flames. The highway linking Bursa to the capital, Ankara, was closed as surrounding forests burned. A firefighter died from a heart attack while on the job, said Bursa's mayor, Mustafa Bozbey, adding that the blaze had scorched more than 7,400 acres around the city. Another person was killed and two seriously injured when a water tanker fell into a ravine outside Bursa, local media reported. Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian for the province, described the scene as 'an apocalypse.' By morning, lessening winds brought some respite to firefighters, who continued efforts to battle the flames. But TV images revealed an ashen landscape where farms and pine forests had earlier stood. Yumakli said fire crews across the country confronted 84 separate fires Saturday. The country's northwest was under the greatest threat, including Karabuk, where wildfires have burned since Tuesday and 1,839 people have been evacuated from 19 villages. Aside from Bursa and Karabuk, a major fire was raging in Kahramanmaras, in southern Turkey, the minister said, warning that rising winds could suddenly reignite fires in areas not properly watered down after the flames are extinguished. Beleaguered firefighters and rescue workers saved thousands of livestock and pets that had been left behind in the rush to evacuate. Local media also showed images of workers assisting wildlife caught among the fires. Unseasonably high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds have been fueling the wildfires. The General Directorate of Meteorology said Turkey recorded its highest temperature ever of 50.5 degrees Celsius — 122.9 degrees Fahrenheit — in the southeastern Sirnak province on Friday. The highest temperatures for July were seen in 132 other locations, the directorate said. Fifteen people have died in recent weeks, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed Wednesday in a fire in Eskisehir in western Turkey. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said late Saturday that prosecutors had investigated fires in 33 provinces since June 26, and that legal action had been taken against 97 suspects. In Greece, firefighters battled active wildfires in the country's southwest and on the island of Kythera on Sunday, after a blaze that scorched the northern Athens suburb of Kryoneri on Saturday. High temperatures, reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more, persist across much of the country, though winds have eased slightly. In Kryoneri, 27 residents were evacuated overnight with police assistance after some initially ignored warnings. Authorities urged the public to comply with evacuation orders, warning that resistance puts both civilians and rescuers in danger. The fire service reported three people hospitalized with breathing issues and one firefighter treated for burns at a military hospital. On the island of Evia, where another fire is now under control, media reports indicate large numbers of animals perished in barns. On Bulgaria's southern borders with Greece and Turkey, as well as the western Serbian frontier, firefighters battled wildfires as the government declared the worst-hit provinces disaster zones. A code-red warning, the highest level, was issued for residents across nearly half the country. National Fire Service chief Alexander Djartov told reporters that 236 wildfires were burning, many fanned by strong winds. The government had asked European Union partners for help, he added, and aircraft were expected from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Hungary and Sweden later Sunday. In the southwestern Strumyani region, overnight blazes forced firefighters to retreat. They were reinforced Sunday by soldiers. Dozens of people fled their homes in the western Tran region as flames threatened villages near the Serbian border. Wilks writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Demetris Nellas in Athens contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ridge to push temperatures 10+ degrees above seasonal in B.C.
Prepare for extreme heat to build into southern British Columbia over the next couple of days as a substantial ridge of high pressure parks across the province. Temperatures are set to soar more than 10 degrees above seasonal in some communities as the heat builds through the middle of the week. Given the forecast and what's already fallen, it's safe to say that this is going to turn out to be one of the driest Julys on record for many locations across the South Coast. DON'T MISS: Temperatures soar as ridge settles over B.C. Extreme heat will arrive Tuesday and Wednesday as a hefty upper-level ridge settles over the province. Tuesday will feature temperatures in the upper 20s near the water, with 30 degrees possible just inland across Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. Locations across the Interior will come in 4-6 degrees warmer, with readings surging into the lower to mid-30s. Wednesday will come in even warmer, with temperatures easily surpassing 30 degrees within just a few hundred metres of the beaches, with widespread readings in the middle to upper 30s throughout the central and southern Interior. RELATED: Heat affects everyone. Vulnerable people are especially susceptible to heat-related illnesses, including those with chronic health conditions and folks living without air conditioning. Be sure to check on your elderly family, friends, and neighbours. The hot and dry weather will also pose a risk for increased wildfire activity throughout the region. One of the driest Julys on record This is typically Vancouver's driest month of the year—but the lack of rain over the past couple of weeks is truly exceptional. Vancouver has only seen 17 mm of rain this month, compared to the 34.1 mm of rain that falls in the city during a typical July. Victoria measured only 0.2 mm of precipitation this month, making it the second-driest July on record. The city, which averages 19.5 mm of rain in a normal July, has gone completely rain-free five times during the month. Victoria's most recent rainless July occurred in 2021. Comox hasn't seen a soaking rain since 10 mm fell on May 19. This month will end as the seventh-driest July on record there, with only 2 mm of precipitation in the gauges compared to the normal total of 23.8 mm. Stay with The Weather Network for all the latest on conditions across British Columbia. WATCH: Are heat waves becoming more likely in Canada? Click here to view the video
CBS News
2 hours ago
- CBS News
Berkeley study warns wildfire evacuations could take hours, gridlock streets
With the cool, damp weather the Bay has seen this summer, the threat of wildfire may be far from most people's minds. But the city of Berkeley has been thinking about it, and a new study they've commissioned says it may take a lot longer for people to evacuate a wildfire zone than they may imagine. Berkeley was wondering what would happen if they had to evacuate large parts of the city in a large urban wildfire, like Palisades or Paradise? But they didn't have to imagine because it actually happened there, a long time ago. On Sept. 17, 1923, high winds drove a grass fire into Berkeley neighborhoods that burned more than 600 homes and made all the national newsreels. That was before the hills were covered with the eucalyptus trees that Henry DeNero, President of the Berkeley FireSafe Council, calls "the line of fire." "Depending on where the fire starts, if the eucalyptus canopy gets ignited in the wind, we're going to have an ember storm that is, I think, very different than the ember storm we've seen in some of these other fires," he said. "A fire today in Tilden Park with a 40-mph Diablo wind would send hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions of embers into the city. And it wouldn't just be the Berkeley hills. They will go all the way down. They will go miles into the city." DeNero was reacting to a study commissioned by the city that estimates that, in some neighborhoods, it could take four hours for people to evacuate. The study uses the boundaries of the 1923 fire and says that with the current number of automobiles being used on the narrow, winding streets, a similar fire in the area could end up being a major disaster as the streets become gridlocked with panicked evacuees. "I think the four-hour estimate is reasonable in an orderly evacuation," DeNero said. "I think the real issue is, can there BE an orderly evacuation? If the alarms went off and AC Alert said, 'This is a mandatory evacuation, there's a fire in Tilden Park,' I think the Berkeley Hills would become jammed with cars within minutes. Everyone would try to leave at the same time. And then I think a four-hour evacuation is problematic. People would leave on foot as they did in the 1991 Oakland fire." Berkeley has a unique system of walking paths and stairs that could be used to get people down out of the hills in a hurry on foot. And most living in the area have been planning on that for years. "If we needed to leave, we'd be on foot," said Cragmont resident Danny Levie, "because in a car, everybody trying to get in their cars? It just wouldn't work." "Imagine with an emergency, possibly at night, with smoke, people a little bit in a panic, the paths are going to be your best way down, on foot," said Colleen Neff with the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association. "The problem with that," said DeNero, "is we have a significant elderly population in the Berkeley hills. And so, those who can't walk out, or run out, or get on a bicycle, will be stuck in the hills, particularly if the streets are jammed with traffic or abandoned cars." The study points out that the road barriers that Berkeley has erected to block traffic flow into neighborhoods may also be a problem during a mass exodus. So, the city is recommending that people "pre-evacuate" by leaving their homes during extreme fire weather conditions. But DeNero thinks that may not be a realistic solution. "The challenge there is how do you get a significant percent of the population to leave when there's no fire?" he said. "And I don't think that has been thought through yet. I think some creativity needs to come to play here. And I think we may have a problem that isn't really solvable." We don't like to think of problems as "unsolvable," but that may be what Berkeley is facing when it comes to wildfire. They can plan for an orderly evacuation, but if history has taught us anything, it's that people's human nature tends to kick in when they're running for their lives.
