Turkey battles deadly wildfires as Greece brings blaze in Crete under control
Wildfires that broke out in at least five locations across Turkey's Aegean coastal province of İzmir -- fueled by soaring temperatures, strong winds, and low humidity -- have killed two people, forced the evacuation of tens of thousands and damaged some 200 homes.
Forestry Minister İbrahim Yumakli said Friday that firefighters, supported by water-dropping aircraft, remained on the ground battling a deadly wildfire near the town of Odemis for a third day. Elsewhere, emergency crews worked to halt the spread of a new blaze that broke out late Thursday near the district of Buca.
The fire near Odemis claimed two lives — a forestry worker who died Thursday trying to contain the flames, and an 81-year-old resident who succumbed to smoke inhalation, according to authorities.
'Our intense air and land fight to control the fires in Odemis and Buca,' continues, the minister said on X, without providing further details.
Another wildfire that broke out Wednesday near the popular vacation destination of Cesme was contained Friday, Yumakli said. The fire prompted the evacuation of three neighborhoods and caused temporary road closures.
In Greece, a coastal wildfire on Crete remained under control. But the fire service maintained a large deployment on the island as the authorities feared flare ups due to strong winds.
More than 5,000 tourists, hotel workers and local residents were moved out of the area on Wednesday as the blaze threatened seaside resorts. Several areas of the country remain on alert due to the adverse weather conditions.
Local authorities in Crete estimate that the wildfire has burned approximately 15 square kilometers (3,700 acres) of land.
Turkish officials have not provided an estimate of the total land area consumed by the fires.
Authorities said most of the fires Izmir were caused by faults on power lines. Yumakli blamed the blaze in Buca on sparks caused by construction workers using a grinder to cut through metal.
Summer wildfires are common in both Greece and Turkey, where experts warn that climate change is intensifying conditions.
__
Gatopoulos reported from Athens.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Syrian wildfires spread due to heavy winds and war remnants
LATAKIA, Syria (AP) — Syrian firefighters are facing heavy winds, high temperatures and ordnance left behind from the 13-year civil war as they try to extinguish some of country's worst wildfires in years, a government minister said Monday. The fires, which started last week, have proven difficult to bring under control despite reinforcements from Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon that came to the war-torn country to help Syrian teams fight the blaze. Syrian Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management Raed al-Saleh said their main challenges are two locations in the coastal province of Latakia that they have been trying to control for two days. 'We have controlled other locations,' al-Saleh told The Associated Press at the scene. On the second day of the fire, firefighters managed to get 90% of the wildfires under control but explosions of left-over war ordnance and heavy winds helped spread the fires again, al-Saleh said. He added that 120 teams are fighting the blazes. On Monday, the Lebanese army said it sent two helicopters to help fight the fires in coordination with Syrian authorities. Over the weekend, U.N. teams deployed to the Syrian coast where they are conducting urgent assessments to determine the scale of the damage and to identify the most immediate humanitarian needs. Summer fires are common in the eastern Mediterranean region, where experts warn that climate change is intensifying conditions that then lead to blazes. Also, below-average rainfall over the winter left Syrians struggling with water shortages this summer, as the springs and rivers that normally supply much of the population with drinking water have gone dry.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Laguna Beach residents rush to evacuate as brush fire threatens homes
Evacuation orders were issued in Laguna Beach after a brush fire ignited in a hilly area of the city Monday afternoon, authorities said. The fire, dubbed the Rancho fire, started around 2:30 p.m. near Rancho Laguna Road and Morningside Drive, according to the Laguna Beach Fire Department. Evacuation orders were issued for La Mirada Street, Katella Street, Summit Drive and Baja Street as firefighters worked to get a handle on the blaze. A temporary evacuation center has been opened at the Community and Susi Q Center at 380 3rd Street. Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley urged all residents to immediately heed evacuation orders and head to safety. A live camera provided by UC San Diego showed large plumes of smoke rising from the hillside near several homes. Two helicopters and a firefighting airplane are working to combat the blaze, according to a live incident map from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. This is a developing story. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ruidoso and Mescalero officials seek state help as communities face post-fire flooding
Floodwaters race past homes in Ruidoso on Sunday, June 30, 2024. (Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Albuquerque). Emergency warnings sounded twice during an interim legislative committee meeting Monday, as south-central New Mexico officials told lawmakers about ongoing dangerous flooding in their communities — and the help they still need to rebuild after last year's wildfires. Village of Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford told the members of the interim Economic & Rural Development & Policy Committee that water had flooded the Ruidoso Downs Racetrack and the village's midtown area on Sunday, and on Monday damaged homes left intact during the 2024 South Fork and Salt fires. Mescalero Apache Tribe President Thora Walsh Padilla told the committee the mountains have received little snowpack over the last few years, which means less vegetation to mitigate flooding in areas even outside the tribe's reservation. In addition, many years' worth of sediment remains in the ravines, decreasing how much water they can hold and making current and future floods even worse, she said. 'We have done quite a bit as far as limiting the debris, the burnt logs, all the stuff coming off the reservation, but that does not stop the water,' Padilla said. 'We have multiple burn scars contributing towards this, both on and off the reservation and on the Lincoln National Forest.' Ruidoso Downs Racetrack General Manager Rick Baugh said the same thing that happened to Ruidoso will happen somewhere else in New Mexico. 'We almost lost the track yesterday,' Baugh told the committee. 'I'm just at the end of my rope, I'll be honest with you. If y'all got any way you can help us, we need your help.' The meeting followed a deadly weekend of flooding in neighboring Texas. Crawford said the village is still rebuilding from the 2024 fires and subsequent floods, and hardening its infrastructure for future ones. Thus far, he said the village has spent $16.8 million on repairing homes and buildings, but some homes remain unfixed, and the village has run out of money. 'Every dime that the village has had access to, that we could spend, we have deployed it,' Crawford said. The village has formally requested only $4 million of the $44 million lawmakers set aside in House Bill 1 for disaster cleanup, Crawford said, because of a provision in the law that requires approval by the Federal Emergency Management Agency before the local government can ask for it. The Legislature has, in several bills over the last three years, approved at least $200 million in emergency loans for communities recovering from fires and floods. Crawford said the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, one of the state agencies helping towns get the funding, told the village that it is 'way down the list' behind other communities asking for the loans. 'The process is broke,' Crawford said. 'What you passed, we don't have access to.' Crawford said the village assessed 498 sites eligible for some kind of repairs and organized them into 27 projects and sent them to FEMA for approval. Crawford said he learned on Monday that late last week, FEMA approved 17 of the projects. FEMA's engineers originally estimated the damage to total $29 million, Crawford said, and now the estimate is five times that amount. Rep. Harlan Vincent (R-Ruidoso Downs), a former fire chief for the village, suggested to the committee that more legislation is needed because the funding lawmakers enacted in the prior session does not cover costs of flood maintenance. 'This silt is going to continue,' he said. 'Did we mess up again? Does anybody want to run another $150 million bill for maintenance budgets? If this happens in your community, you're going to go through it, or that water will come out of the banks and it's going to devastate people's properties.' Padilla said the Sierra Blanca Regional Recovery Task Force has been coordinating cleanup efforts and sediment removal since the fires both on the reservation and in Lincoln County and Ruidoso. She said the task force wants to build a regional training center to improve local firefighting capabilities. Padilla said local floodways are becoming active again nearly a century after the Civilian Conservation Corps came in during the 1930s to terrace and drain wetlands. The landscape around Ruidoso and Mescalero doesn't look like it did then, Padilla said. It used to be a forested grassland but now the forest is so thick and the elk populations so large that the water table can't support it. 'This land is not in its natural state anymore, and we need something to jumpstart that and take us back a little further in time to be able to maintain living in these mountains,' Padilla said. Padilla said there has been a huge buildup of trees that is harming the land, and her tribe wants to reopen a sawmill that closed in 2012 in order to thin the forest and reduce fire risk. 'It became very apparent during the fires that we need to get back on that track,' Padilla said. 'We've taken natural fires out of the system,' Padilla said. 'Good logging and thinning is how we intend to replace that, and that's how we've been able to keep our lands safe for many years. The sawmill is critical to that.' Padilla said the tribe received $2 million from the Legislature to reopen the sawmill, and is now asking the U.S. Economic Development Administration for $17.5 million to finish the job. 'We're not giving up,' she said. 'We'll stand for our homelands forever.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE