Turkey’s death toll has risen to 17 and thousands of people have been evacuated as wildfires continue to blaze throughout the country.
As flames close in on Bursa, the country’s fourth largest city, three firefighters died over the weekend while trying to fight the flames. More than 3,500 people have fled their homes as the blaze has spread rapidly.
Turkish fire services fought 84 fires across the country, 36 of which were in forest areas and 48 in non-forest areas, according to minister of agriculture and forestry Ibrahim Yumakli. Flames have scorched 3,000 hectares around the city of Bursa.
Meanwhile, 55 wildfires have broken out in Greece in the past 24 hours; while 50 were dealt with immediately, the Hellenic fire brigade is still dealing with five. Some Athens suburbs, such as the northern suburb of Kryoneri, were evacuated as some homes caught fire.
Turkey’s government declared two western provinces, Izmir and Bilecik, disaster areas on Friday. Photos have shown orange skies across Turkey as smoke and flames rise in forested areas.
Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian for the Bursa province, described the scenes as “an apocalypse”.
Mr Yumakli said Turkey broke an all-time temperature record on Friday of 50.5C in the southeastern city of Sirnak. Information published by the country’s General Directorate of Meteorology suggested that temperatures would rise by another 10 degrees from Saturday.
Meanwhile, temperatures in Greece similarly remain in the mid to high thirties with persistent sunshine and dry conditions.
Unseasonably high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds have fuelled severe wildfires across Europe since June.
On 1 July, two people died in a wildfire in Catalonia, as a raging wildfire consumed nearly 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) of vegetation. Spain has experienced record-breaking temperatures this summer, with its weather service Aemet remarking that its “extremely hot” June, with an average temperature of 23.6C, “has pulverised records”, surpassing the normal average for July and August.
In the south of France, a wildfire reached the outskirts of Marseille and injured 110 people, after burning through 700 hectares.
Firefighters worked through the night to contain the blaze, which authorities believe was caused by a car that caught fire on the side of a highway.
Greece has repeatedly battled wildfires in key holiday destinations, such as Crete and Chios over the past month.
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