Turkiye sent two firefighting aircraft Saturday to help battle wildfires in neighbouring Syria as Turkish firefighters battled a blaze on their side of the border and one person was reported dead in the country’s west.
Eleven fire trucks and water support vehicles were also dispatched to help beat back flames in Syria’s northwest Latakia region, according to Raed Al Saleh, the Syrian minister of emergency and disaster management.
Raed Al Saleh posted on X, saying “sudden wildfires in Turkiye” delayed their arrival by almost a day.
Turkiye has been battling wildfires since June 26.
Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said Saturday that firefighters successfully controlled 10 major fires in western Turkiye, but an injured forestry worker had died, the third in the municipality of Odemis in Izmir province. Authorities said most of the fires in Izmir were caused by faulty power lines.
Meanwhile, in Hatay province, which borders 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.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said fourty four suspects had been detained in relation to 65 fires that broke out across the country.
Fires that have hit Turkiye, Greece, and Syria over the past weekhave been intensified by extreme weather conditions. Strong winds have helped spread the flames rapidly across regions. Low humidity has further exacerbated the situation, hindering containment efforts. Authorities across all three countries are struggling to control the wildfires.
In Turkiye, they led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and damaged some two hundred homes.
The Syrian Civil Defense expressed concerns over the presence of unexploded ordnance from the country’s past conflicts in some of the wildfire areas. Summer fires are common in the eastern Mediterranean region, where experts warn that climate change is intensifying conditions.