AFP UK

They grabbed their rakes, shovels and axes, donned high-vis helmets and went off into the mountains, helping exhausted firefighters battling Turkey’s deadly blazes pick their way through unfamiliar terrain.

Residents of the rolling hills and pine forests hugging the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts have turned into the unsung heroes of Turkey’s battle against its deadliest and most destructive wildfires in generations.

“You see that little fire over there? We will intervene and put it out right away,” Mehmet Yesimoglu, a 50-year-old shopkeeper, said proudly while pointing to a worrying patch of blood-orange flames.

“If we don’t, then it will grow and then we will need helicopters or planes.”

Turks have been watching in horror as huge pockets of some of the country’s most fertile land goes up in flames, turning to ash fields and valleys which farmers rely on for subsistence.

At least eight people have died and dozens of villages have been evacuated. Few know what — if anything — they will be able to return to when the fires finally subside.

But instead of feeling helpless, many joined the frontlines.

“This is not something we knew how to do before,” Tanzer Bulut, 30, said as he walked toward the smoke blotting out the horizon.

“All we do is try to be logical. You look where the flames are going and try to get ahead of them. We do what we can even though we are not professionals.”

– ‘I trust his knowledge’ –

Some of the locals give the firefighters directions, showing the best way to thread their way through winding roads that are often blanketed in smoke in the daytime and lit up by threatening, red flames at night.

One man stood on the side of the road, shining a clear path with the flashlight in his helmet, waving fire engines through with a stick.

Food and water donations have been pouring in from across the country to the point that one local official pleaded for Turks to stop — there was simply no place to store it all.

Others are helping the firefighters pull long, thick heavy hoses on their shoulders to the edges of the flames.

“To get a bulldozer through, I was able to show a clear path to the top without a problem, even though it’s steep,” said Hayati Zorlu, 55, a local village head in the Mugla province, which is home to popular Aegean resorts.

“Because I know the terrain and I am the only one here. There are no other officials except for the village chief.”

Hakan Karabulut, who heads an Istanbul fire brigade dispatched to the disaster zone, ran out of fingers on his hand listing all the ways locals have been able to help.

“First of all, they are our guides. Second, they show where to refuel with water. Third, they tell us where the fires are. Fourth, they provide us with logistical support, whether it’s food or drink. And fifth, they help us carry the fire hoses.”

But there was more, the fire chief said.

“We have youngsters here who are hunters and they know the territory very well. If I find him and I trust his knowledge, I don’t let him go.”

Thousands of tourists and residents were evacuated and a thick cloud of smoke and ash hung over Athens Saturday as forests fires that have already killed two people raged for an 11th day in parts of Greece.

At least 1,450 Greek firefighters were battling the infernos along with 15 aircraft, with reinforcements arriving from other countries, the fire service said.

The blazes are set to continue with strong winds and temperatures of up to 38 degrees C (100 F) forecast in some regions on Saturday.

Greece and Turkey have been fighting devastating fires for more than a week as the region suffers its worst heatwave in decades — officials and experts linking such intense weather events to climate change. 

A UN draft report seen by AFP labelled the Mediterranean region a “climate change hotspot” and warned that heatwaves, droughts and fires would become more fierce in the future, supercharged by rising temperatures.

The Greek fire service said Saturday blazes were raging in the Attica peninsula that includes Athens, in Evia, the country’s second largest island and located east of the capital, and the Peloponnese region in the southwest.

One of two people killed in Greece was named as Konstantinos Michalos, the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He was found unconscious in a factory in Krioneri and was later confirmed dead in hospital.

On Friday, a 38-year-old man from Ippokrateio, a town north of Athens that has been ravaged by the flames, died in hospital after being hit by a falling electric pole as he was riding a moped. 

In Turkey, eight people have been killed and dozens more hospitalised during 10 days of fire.

North of Athens, a fierce blaze tore through vast areas of pine forest, forcing yet more evacuations of villages overnight and blowing thick, choking smoke and ash all over the Greek capital.

Part of a motorway linking Athens to the north of the country has been shut down as a precaution and migrant camps were evacuated.

In the Evia village of Limni, more than 1,300 people fled the fires on ferry boats. Another 23 were evacuated Saturday morning from the beach at Rovies.

Local authorities on the island called for more air support in the firefighting efforts. 

Around 5,000 tourists and residents were also forced to flee another fire in the Peloponnese region. 

– ‘Nightmarish summer’ –

Eleni Drakoulakou, the mayor of of East Mani, told ERT TV on Saturday that 50 percent of the Peloponnese town has been burnt, blaming a lack of water-dropping air support during the critical first hours of the wildfire. 

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday pledged the swift restoration of the affected areas.

“The burnt areas will be marked out for reforestation,”he told reporters. “When this nightmarish summer ends we will reverse the damage as soon as possible”.

The ANA news agency said two people were held on suspicion of arson.

In Athens, police arrested a woman in a park on Friday as she was carrying two lighters, petrol and flammable materials, a few minutes after a fire broke out there.

Authorities have banned visits to parks and forests through Greece, according to ANA.

Meanwhile, a 43-year-old man was arrested in the area of Krioneri near Athens and charged with arson, according to ANA.

A huge wildfire tearing through northern California became the third-largest in the state’s history Friday, and looked set to continue growing.

A long-term drought that scientists say is driven by climate change has left the western United States parched — and vulnerable to explosive and highly destructive fires.

The Dixie Fire, which this week razed the Gold Rush town of Greenville, has torched more than 1,700 square kilometers (650 square miles) since it erupted in mid-July. 

Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns, who is helping to coordinate the fight against the fire, said the destruction was devastating.

“I am a lifelong resident of Greenville. My heart is crushed by what has occurred there,” he told a briefing on Thursday.

“To the folks that have lost residences and businesses… their life is now forever changed.

“All I can tell you is: I’m sorry.”

The town of Greenville stood charred and in ruins Friday, with timber structures gone completely and some stone buildings reduced to rubble.

Johns said there were no injuries so far from the huge blaze, but stressed it was vital that people in the path of the fire heed evacuation warnings.

“This fire is not over. If that plume is anywhere near your direction… you need to prepare. Wherever the wind blows this fire, that’s where it’s going to go.”

Regina Rutledge, who fled the town of Chester as the flames bore down, said the experience had been “very intense.”

“You could see the red coming off the hills, the blows of the fire. It’s a monster, it truly is,” she told AFP.

– Gusting winds –

More than 5,000 personnel are battling the blaze, which is sending enormous clouds of smoke into the air that are easily visible from space.

Incident managers said Friday they were expecting gusting winds would fan the blaze.

Those winds, coupled with steep terrain and an abundance of very dry vegetation, were fueling the flames and making the work of firefighters more difficult.

The Dixie Fire added around a fifth to its area overnight, making it larger than the Bootleg Fire that has laid waste to a swathe of Oregon over the last month.

Thousands of square kilometers of the western United States have burned this year, an alarming result of the warming planet that has affected weather patterns.

By late July, the number of acres burned in California was up more than 250 percent from 2020 — itself the worst year of wildfires in the state’s modern history.

The Dixie Fire has evoked painful memories of the Paradise Fire, the deadliest blaze in California’s recent history.

Faulty power lines sparked that inferno, which swept through the northern town of Paradise in 2018, killing 86 people. Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest energy utility firm, was deemed responsible.

PG&E equipment is again being blamed for the Dixie Fire, after a tree fell on a power conductor the day the blaze began.

The utility announced in late July it will bury 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of power lines in a massive bid to prevent its equipment from igniting more deadly wildfires.

Greenville itself is no stranger to fire disasters. A catastrophic blaze destroyed much of the town in 1881, and several major infernos have threatened residents in the intervening 140 years.  

A huge wildfire tearing through northern California became the third-largest in the state’s history Friday, and looked set to continue growing.

A long-term drought that scientists say is driven by climate change has left the western United States parched — and vulnerable to explosive and highly destructive fires.

The Dixie Fire, which this week razed the Gold Rush town of Greenville, has torched more than 1,700 square kilometers (650 square miles) since it erupted in mid-July. 

Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns, who is helping to coordinate the fight against the fire, said the destruction was devastating.

“I am a lifelong resident of Greenville. My heart is crushed by what has occurred there,” he told a briefing on Thursday.

“To the folks that have lost residences and businesses… their life is now forever changed.

“All I can tell you is: I’m sorry.”

The town of Greenville stood charred and in ruins Friday, with timber structures gone completely and some stone buildings reduced to rubble.

Johns said there were no injuries so far from the huge blaze, but stressed it was vital that people in the path of the fire heed evacuation warnings.

“This fire is not over. If that plume is anywhere near your direction… you need to prepare. Wherever the wind blows this fire, that’s where it’s going to go.”

– Gusting winds –

More than 5,000 personnel are battling the blaze, which is sending enormous clouds of smoke into the air that are easily visible from space.

Incident managers said Friday they were expecting gusting winds would fan the blaze.

Those winds, coupled with steep terrain and an abundance of very dry vegetation, were fueling the flames and making the work of firefighters more difficult.

The Dixie Fire grew overnight by a fifth, to more than 430,000 acres (174,000 hectares), making it larger than the Bootleg Fire that has laid waste to a swathe of Oregon over the last month.

Thousands of square kilometers of the western United States have burned this year, an alarming result of the warming planet that has affected weather patterns.

By late July, the number of acres burned in California was up more than 250 percent from 2020 — itself the worst year of wildfires in the state’s modern history.

The Dixie Fire has evoked painful memories of the Paradise Fire, the deadliest blaze in California’s recent history.

Faulty power lines sparked that inferno, which swept through the northern town of Paradise in 2018, killing 86 people. Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest energy utility firm, was deemed responsible.

PG&E equipment is again being blamed for the Dixie Fire, after a tree fell on a power conductor the day the blaze began.

The utility announced in late July it will bury 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of power lines in a massive bid to prevent its equipment from igniting more deadly wildfires.

Greenville itself is no stranger to fire disasters. A catastrophic blaze destroyed much of the town in 1881, and several major infernos have threatened residents in the intervening 140 years.  

NASA’s Perseverance drilled into the surface of Mars but failed in its initial attempt to collect rock samples that would be picked up by future missions for analysis by scientists on Earth.

The US space agency published images Friday of a small mound with a hole in its center next to the rover — the first ever dug into the Red Planet by a robot.

But data sent to Earth by the rover after its first attempt to collect a sample and seal it in a tube indicated no rock had been gathered.

“While this is not the ‘hole-in-one’ we hoped for, there is always risk with breaking new ground,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, in a statement.

“I’m confident we have the right team working this, and we will persevere toward a solution to ensure future success.”

The drill hole is the first step of a sampling process that is expected to take about 11 days, with the aim of looking for signs of ancient microbial life that may have been preserved in ancient lakebed deposits.

Scientists also hope to better understand Martian geology. 

The mission took off from Florida a little over a year ago and Perseverance, which is the size of a large family car, landed on February 18 in the Jezero Crater.

Scientists believe the crater contained a deep lake 3.5 billion years ago, where the conditions may have been able to support extraterrestrial life. 

NASA plans a mission to bring around 30 samples back to Earth in the 2030s, to be analyzed by instruments that are much more sophisticated than those that can be brought to Mars at present. 

A huge wildfire tearing through northern California became the third-largest in the state’s history Friday, and looked set to continue growing.

A long-term drought that scientists say is driven by climate change has left the western United States parched — and vulnerable to explosive and highly destructive fires.

The Dixie Fire, which this week razed the Gold Rush town of Greenville, has torched more than 1,700 square kilometers (650 square miles) since it erupted in mid-July. 

Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns, who is helping to coordinate the fight against the fire, said the destruction was devastating.

“I am a lifelong resident of Greenville. My heart is crushed by what has occurred there,” he told a briefing on Thursday.

“To the folks that have lost residences and businesses… their life is now forever changed.

“All I can tell you is: I’m sorry.”

The town of Greenville stood charred and in ruins Friday, with timber structures gone completely and some stone buildings reduced to rubble.

Johns said there were no injuries so far from the huge blaze, but stressed it was vital that people in the path of the fire heed evacuation warnings.

“This fire is not over. If that plume is anywhere near your direction… you need to prepare. Wherever the wind blows this fire, that’s where it’s going to go.”

– Gusting winds –

More than 5,000 personnel are battling the blaze, which is sending enormous clouds of smoke into the air that are easily visible from space.

Incident managers said Friday they were expecting gusting winds would fan the blaze.

Those winds, coupled with steep terrain and an abundance of very dry vegetation, were fueling the flames and making the work of firefighters more difficult.

The Dixie Fire grew overnight by a fifth, to more than 430,000 acres (174,000 hectares), making it larger than the Bootleg Fire that has laid waste to a swathe of Oregon over the last month.

Thousands of square kilometers of the western United States have burned this year, an alarming result of the warming planet that has affected weather patterns.

By late July, the number of acres burned in California was up more than 250 percent from 2020 — itself the worst year of wildfires in the state’s modern history.

The Dixie Fire has evoked painful memories of the Paradise Fire, the deadliest blaze in California’s recent history.

Faulty power lines sparked that inferno, which swept through the northern town of Paradise in 2018, killing 86 people. Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest energy utility firm, was deemed responsible.

PG&E equipment is again being blamed for the Dixie Fire, after a tree fell on a power conductor the day the blaze began.

The utility announced in late July it will bury 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of power lines in a massive bid to prevent its equipment from igniting more deadly wildfires.

Greenville itself is no stranger to fire disasters. A catastrophic blaze destroyed much of the town in 1881, and several major infernos have threatened residents in the intervening 140 years.  

A huge wildfire tearing through northern California became the third largest in the state’s history Friday, and looked set to continue growing.

A long-term drought that scientists say is driven by climate change has left the western United States parched — and vulnerable to explosive and highly destructive fires.

The Dixie Fire, which this week razed the Gold Rush town of Greenville, has torched more than 1,700 square kilometers (650 square miles) since it erupted in mid-July.

Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns, who is helping to co-ordinate the fight against the fire, said the destruction was devastating.

“I am a lifelong resident of Greenville. My heart is crushed by what has occurred there,” he told a briefing on Thursday.

“To the folks that have lost residences and businesses… their life is now forever changed.

“All I can tell you is: I’m sorry.”

The town of Greenville stood charred and in ruins Friday, with timber structures gone completely and some stone buildings reduced to rubble.

Todds said there were no injuries so far from the huge blaze, but stressed it was vital that people in the path of the fire heeded evacuation warnings.

“This fire is not over. If that plume is anywhere near your direction… you need to prepare. Wherever the wind blows this fire, that’s where it’s going to go.”

Over 5,000 personnel are battling the blaze, which is sending enormous clouds of smoke into the air that are easily visible from space.

The Dixie Fire grew overnight to more than 430,000 acres (174,000 hectares), making it larger than the Bootleg fire that has laid waste to a swathe of Oregon over the last month.

Thousands of square kilometers of the western United States has burned this year, an alarming result of the warming planet that has affected weather patterns.

By late July, the number of acres burned in California was up more than 250 percent from 2020 — itself the worst year of wildfires in the state’s modern history.

The Dixie Fire has evoked painful memories of the Paradise Fire, the deadliest blaze in California’s recent history.

Faulty power lines sparked the inferno, which swept through the northern town of Paradise in 2018, killing 86 people. Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest energy utility firm, was deemed responsible.

PG&E equipment is again being blamed for the Dixie Fire, after a tree fell on a power conductor the day the blaze began.

The utility announced in late July it will bury 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of power lines in a massive bid to prevent its equipment from igniting more deadly wildfires.

Greenville itself is no stranger to fire disasters. A catastrophic blaze destroyed much of the town in 1881, and several major infernos have threatened residents in the intervening 140 years.  

NASA’s Perseverance rover has begun drilling into the surface of Mars and will collect rock samples to be picked up by future missions for analysis by scientists on Earth.

The US space agency published images Friday of a small mound with a hole in its center next to the rover — the first ever dug into the Red Planet by a robot.

“Sample collection has begun!” tweeted Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate.

The drill hole is the first step of a sampling process that is expected to take about 11 days, with the aim of looking for signs of ancient microbial life that may have been preserved in ancient lakebed deposits.

Scientists also hope to better understand the Martian geology. 

The mission took off from Florida a little over a year ago and Perseverance, which is the size of a large family car, landed on February 18 in the Jezero Crater.

Scientists believe the crater contained a deep lake 3.5 billion years ago, where the conditions may have been able to support extraterrestrial life. 

NASA plans a mission to bring around 30 samples back to Earth in the 2030s, to be analyzed by instruments that are much more sophisticated than those that can be brought to Mars at present. 

Fires raging in Greece claimed their first two lives on Friday during a heatwave that officials said had turned the country into a “powder keg”, while devastating blazes in neighbouring Turkey piled pressure on its government.

Greece and Turkey have been fighting devastating fires for days with the region suffering its worst heatwave in decades — officials and experts linking such intense weather events to climate change. 

A UN draft report seen by AFP labelled the Mediterranean region a “climate change hotspot” and warned that heatwaves, droughts and fires would become more fierce in the future, supercharged by rising temperatures.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated in both countries as temperatures hover between 40 and 45 degrees Celsius (104 to 113 Fahrenheit).

One of those killed in Greece was named as Konstantinos Michalos, the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He was found unconscious in a factory in Krioneri and was later confirmed dead in hospital.

In Turkey, eight people have been killed and dozens more hospitalised during 10 days of fire.

– ‘Uncontrollable’ –

“Our country is facing an extremely critical situation,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

“We’re facing unprecedented conditions after several days of heatwave have turned the country into a powder keg.”

North of Athens, a fierce blaze tore through vast areas of pine forest, forcing yet more evacuations of villages overnight and blowing thick, choking smoke all over the Greek capital.

Text alerts were sent out to people in Athens warning of “extreme fire danger in the coming days”.

In the small town of Afidnes, 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of the capital, firefighters were seen standing on their truck in the dead of night, dousing flames that leapt high above them.

By morning, the fires had destroyed cars, trees, and houses. 

In nearby Krioneri, the fire scorched homes, businesses and factories.

“The fire is uncontrollable,” said resident Vassiliki Papapanagiotis. “I don’t want to leave, my whole life is here.”

Part of a motorway linking Athens to the north of the country has been shut down as a precaution and a migrant camp was evacuated.

Hundreds of miles southwest in the Peleponnese region roughly 5,000 tourists and residents were forced to flee another fire. 

Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said that out of 99 fires reported on Thursday, 56 were still active.

At least 450 Greek firefighters have been pressed into service along with water-dropping air support and reinforcements from France, Switzerland, Romania, Sweden, Israel and Cyprus.

– ‘Treachery’ –

More people were forced from their homes  on Friday in five Turkish provinces, including tourist hotspots Antalya and Mugla, according to NTV.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has faced huge criticism for failing to accept some offers of foreign help after revealing that Turkey had no functioning firefighting planes.

The Turkish government is also facing pressure after the opposition claimed a report by a government agency showed only a fraction of the budget for forest fire prevention had been spent.

“This is a situation that one could go as far as to describe as treachery,” opposition party MP Murat Emir told AFP.

Extreme fires like those in Greece and Turkey will become even worse, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in a draft report due out next year seen by AFP.

“Climate change is forcing Mediterranean landscapes into a flammable state more regularly by drying out vegetation and priming it to burn,” said Matthew Jones, research fellow at the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

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Fires raging in Greece claimed their first two lives on Friday during a punishing heatwave, while devastating wildfires in neighbouring Turkey piled pressure on the Turkish government.

Greece and Turkey have been fighting blaze upon blaze over the past week, hit by the region’s worst heatwave in decades, a disaster that officials and experts have linked to increasingly frequent and intense weather events caused by climate change. 

A UN draft report seen by AFP has warned that the Mediterranean region, which it called a “climate change hotspot,” will be hit by fiercer heatwaves, droughts and fires supercharged by rising temperatures.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated in both countries as temperatures hover between 40 to 45 degrees Celsius (104 to 113 Fahrenheit).

A 38-year-old man from Ippokrateio, a town north of Athens hit by giant flames, died in hospital on Friday after being hit by a falling electric pole as he was riding a moped, the health ministry said.

In the nearby town of Krioneri, Konstantinos Michalos, the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was found unconscious in a factory and was transported to hospital where he was also confirmed dead, a hospital source said.

They are the first two deaths recorded from the fires in Greece, while 18 people have been injured, most with respiratory problems or minor burns. Two volunteer firefighters have been hospitalised in a critical condition, local media reported.

In Turkey, some eight people have been killed and dozens more hospitalised during 10 days of fire.

– ‘Powder keg’ –

“Our country is facing an extremely critical situation,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

“We’re facing unprecedented conditions after several days of heatwave have turned the country into a powder keg.”

North of Athens, a fierce blaze tore through vast areas of pine forest, forcing yet more evacuations of villages overnight and blowing thick, choking smoke all over the Greek capital.

Text alerts were sent out to people in Athens warning of “extreme fire danger in the coming days”.

In the small town of Afidnes, 30 kilometres (12 miles) north of the capital, firefighters were seen standing on their truck in the dead of night, dousing flames that leapt high above them.

In the morning, the fires had left desolation in their wake — burnt cars, trees, and houses destroyed. 

In nearby Krioneri, the fire scorched homes, businesses and factories.

“The fire is uncontrollable,” said resident Vassiliki Papapanagiotis. “I don’t want to leave, my whole life is here.”

Part of a motorway linking Athens to the north of the country has been shut down as a precaution.

Around 5,000 residents and tourists were evacuated in the southern Peloponnese town of Gytheio, the ERT channel reported.

Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said that out of 99 fires reported on Thursday, 56 were still active.

At least 450 Greek firefighters were fighting the blaze, along with water-dropping air support and reinforcements from France, Switzerland, Romania, Sweden, Israel and Cyprus.

– More Turkey evacuations –

In Turkey, 208 fires have flared up since July 28, and 12 were still ablaze on Friday, according to the presidency.

In one particularly critical event earlier this week, winds whipped up a flash fire that subsumed the grounds of an Aegean coast power plant in Turkey storing thousands of tonnes of coal.

More evacuations took place on Friday in five Turkish provinces, including tourist hotspots Antalya and Mugla, according to NTV.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under withering criticism for being slow or unwilling to accept some offers of foreign assistance after revealing that Turkey had no functioning firefighting planes.

The Turkish government is also facing pressure after the opposition referred to a report which showed only a fraction of the budget for forest fire prevention had been spent.

The General Directorate of Forestry (OGM) spent only 1.75 percent of nearly 200 million Turkish lira ($23 million) allocated for forest fires in the first six months of 2021, main opposition party MP Murat Emir said, referring to numbers apparently from the state agency’s own report.

“This is a situation that one could go as far as to describe as treachery,” he told AFP.

Extreme fires like those in Greece and Turkey will become even worse, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in a draft report due out next year seen by AFP.

“Climate change is forcing Mediterranean landscapes into a flammable state more regularly by drying out vegetation and priming it to burn,” said Matthew Jones, research fellow at the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

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