Map reveals where wildfires are spreading in Turkey and parts of Europe | News World

Greater than a dozen people dead; tens of 1000’s of others evacuated;and 1000’s of hectares of land burning – that is the ‘titanic battle’ the Balkans is facing.

Wildfires are currently raging in Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria amid a 44°C heatwave, ongoing droughts and powerful winds.

A map from Nasa shows how flames have spread across the region within the last week despite efforts to contain them.

What has grow to be clear is that climate change is accelerating the disaster in a region already on the brink.

Turkey

Wildfires which have engulfed Turkey for weeks at the moment are threatening Bursa, its fourth-largest city, early on Sunday.

Greater than 3,500 people have been forced to flee their homes in villages to the northeast as greater than 1,900 firefighters battled the flames.

The highway linking the town to the capital, Ankara, was shut as surrounding forests burned.

4 people have been killed to this point. The death toll rose last night after two firefighters, who were pulled from a water tanker that rolled while heading to a forest inferno, died in hospital. One other firefighter died from a heart attack while on the road of duty.

Their deaths raised Turkey’s wildfire fatalities to 17 since June, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry staff killed on Wednesday.

Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian for Bursa, described the positioning as ‘an apocalypse’.

He added on X: ‘While carrying water to the forest fire between Gürsu and Kestel districts, the water tanker that rolled right into a ravine claimed the lives of our three employee brothers.

‘As our lungs burned, this tragedy added a heartache to our pain. I wish mercy for our brothers and condolences to their families, family members, and our Bursa.’

Footage revealed an ashen landscape where farms and pine forests had earlier stood.

The rise in wildfires comes as Turkey recorded its highest ever temperature of fifty.5°C within the southeastern Sirnak province on Friday.

Greece

In neighbouring Greece, 50 fires scorched the suburbs of Athens, forcing the federal government to evacuate residents over the weekend.

Firefighters were working on five major fronts late Sunday in the world of Peloponnese, west of the capital, in addition to on the islands of Evia, Kythera and Crete.

Kythera, a tourist island with 3,600 residents, continued to face ‘worrying’ conditions.

Deputy mayor Giorgos Komninos told the state-run ERT News channel that half of Kythera had been charred.

He said: ‘Houses, beehives, olive trees have been burnt.’

ERT reported that a fire was still burning on the island late Sunday, but in smaller fronts and the situation was improving.

Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a press release released on Sunday morning: ‘The state mechanism was called to interact in a titanic battle, concurrently responding to dozens of wildfires across the country.

‘Today, the situation appears improved, however the fight continues with all available resources.’

Bulgaria

Firefighters battled wildfires at nearly 100 locations across the country on Sunday, with emergency services describing the situation as ‘critical’.

Theodora Vasileva, mayor of one in all the devastated villages, Kozarevo, within the southeastern province of Yambol, said that is the primary time she had witnessed a disaster of such magnitude.

She added: ‘The rapid notification system helped us rather a lot – people began calling and gathered in minutes. That is the primary time I’m seeing this hell; the sunflower crops were all in flames.

‘The elderly, whose homes are every thing for them, wept. They were so anxious, but every thing is under control for now, their houses are preserved.’

Emergency volunteer Zvezdelin Vlaykov stressed that in all his years of firefighting, he has never seen anything prefer it.

He added: ‘It’s a merciless tragedy.’

This comes as two men were charged with terrorism offences after allegedly deliberately setting fires within the cities of Veliko Turnovo and Sliven.

The Ministry of Interior confirmed that the costs have been escalated from easy arson to crimes under Chapter One among the Criminal Code.

Bulgaria is essentially the most affected country by fires for 2024-2025 within the EU, with more that 38,000 square miles affected.

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