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18 July 2025
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Thousands in Greece and Turkey evacuate as winds and heat fan wildfires, more than 10 firefighters/rescuers killed
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Thousands of people in Greece and Turkey have been forced to evacuate homes as firefighters in the countries battled to contain wildfires fanned by strong winds and searing heat. At least 10 firefighters and rescue workers were killed and 14 others injured while battling a wildfire in Turkey’s northwestern Eskisehir province, authorities said, as several fires rage in central and western areas of the country where temperatures are soaring. Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Ibrahim Yumakli said on Wednesday that five forestry workers and five rescuers trying to tackle the blaze were killed when 24 firefighters became trapped in the wildfire earlier in the day.
Winds whipped up by the flames suddenly changed direction, and the fire engulfed the group of firefighters, who were swiftly transported to hospital, where 10 of them died. Fourteen others are still receiving medical treatment, the minister said. “Unfortunately, we have lost five forest workers and five [rescuers],” Yumakli told Turkish television broadcasters.
Turkish news website BirGun reported that the group were trapped by the fire and “burned alive”. Local lawmaker Nebi Hatipoglu wrote on X that there are “no words to describe our grief”.
Turkey has been sweltering since Sunday under high temperatures and strong winds that have fanned wildfires between Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, with the spreading blazes threatening homes and forcing the evacuation of several villages.
Minister Yumakli said extreme heat and volatile wind conditions were also expected on Thursday. “Starting tomorrow, we are facing extraordinary temperatures and extreme wind shifts. Once again, I call on all 86 million citizens to be vigilant and exercise extra caution,” he said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised the victims who fought “to protect our forests at cost of their lives”. “I pray for God’s mercy on our brothers and sisters who fought at the cost of their lives to protect our forests, and I offer my condolences to their families and our nation,” Erdogan said in a message posted on social media.
Two prosecutors have been assigned to investigate the incident, the country’s justice minister said.
The deaths on Wednesday bring the number of deaths in wildfires so far in the country to 13 this year. An elderly man and two forestry workers were killed in a wildfire that raged near the town of Odemis, in the Izmir province, earlier this month.
As temperatures in south-eastern Europe exceeded 40C for a seventh straight day, the Greek prime minister praised rescue workers for waging “a titanic battle” to bring blazes under control. “The state mechanism has been called to engage in a titanic battle, simultaneously responding to dozens of wildfires across the country,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement. “To those who saw their properties destroyed by the fury of fire, know that the state will stand by your side.”
Eleven regions of Greece face a “very high risk” of fire, and the government has appealed for help from EU partners to help it deal with fires burning on multiple fronts.
Emergency services said that while a conflagration that had injured two firefighters in Kryoneri, north-east of Athens, had been successfully quelled, fires around Messinia in the south-west Peloponnese and on the popular island of Kythera had not been contained.
The authorities were also battling flare-ups on the islands of Evia and Crete. In all of the stricken areas residents received messages to evacuate.
Several regions were placed under a red category 5 alert, the highest on the national scale, because of conditions exacerbated by the extreme weather that had turned terrain to tinder.
The National Observatory in Athens recorded a temperature of 45.8C (114.5F) in Messinia on Friday. On Saturday, the temperature reached 45.2C (113.4F) in Amfilochia, western Greece.
By late Sunday, as Czech firefighters and Italian water-bombers joined emergency teams in Greece, the focus turned to Kythera. Describing the destruction as “incalculable”, the public broadcaster ERT reported: “The first images are resonant of a biblical disaster as huge areas have been reduced to cinders and ash.”
The island’s deputy mayor, Giorgos Komninos, was cited as saying: “Everything, from houses, beehives [to] olive trees has been burnt.”
Two teams of forest commandos, 67 firefighters and scores of volunteers backed by 22 fire brigade trucks, three helicopters and two planes were struggling to douse flames that had ripped through prime agricultural and forest land on the island fuelled by gale-force winds. As flames approached, villagers were ordered to evacuate to safer areas, with 139 people, including tourists who were trapped on a beach, being rescued by the coast guard.
The meteorologist Panagiotis Yiannopoulos told ERT: “We are expecting the winds to get stronger right over Kythera and Crete, winds of six-beaufort strength from this evening until Tuesday evening, so a lot of very strong wind over many hours.”
In Turkey, where a record temperature of 50.5 C was registered in the province of Şirnak, in the south-east – surpassing a previous heat record of 49.5C in August 2023 – more than 1 700 people were forced to flee their homes after wildfires barrelled towards Bursa, the country’s fourth-largest city. Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian, described the scene as “an apocalypse”.
More than 1 100 firefighters were battling the flames, with authorities saying that at least 76 fires had broken out within a 24-hour period. Turkey has been hit by numerous heat-induced infernos for weeks.
On Sunday, Bursa’s mayor said a firefighter had died of a heart attack on the job, bringing the death toll to 14. Ten of the victims were rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed on Wednesday in a fire in the west of the country.
Dozens of fires were also reported in Albania over the weekend, where thousands were forced to evacuate homes in the southern town of Delvina.
Sources: The Guardian, Al Jazeera
Winds whipped up by the flames suddenly changed direction, and the fire engulfed the group of firefighters, who were swiftly transported to hospital, where 10 of them died. Fourteen others are still receiving medical treatment, the minister said. “Unfortunately, we have lost five forest workers and five [rescuers],” Yumakli told Turkish television broadcasters.
Turkish news website BirGun reported that the group were trapped by the fire and “burned alive”. Local lawmaker Nebi Hatipoglu wrote on X that there are “no words to describe our grief”.
Turkey has been sweltering since Sunday under high temperatures and strong winds that have fanned wildfires between Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, with the spreading blazes threatening homes and forcing the evacuation of several villages.
Minister Yumakli said extreme heat and volatile wind conditions were also expected on Thursday. “Starting tomorrow, we are facing extraordinary temperatures and extreme wind shifts. Once again, I call on all 86 million citizens to be vigilant and exercise extra caution,” he said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised the victims who fought “to protect our forests at cost of their lives”. “I pray for God’s mercy on our brothers and sisters who fought at the cost of their lives to protect our forests, and I offer my condolences to their families and our nation,” Erdogan said in a message posted on social media.
Two prosecutors have been assigned to investigate the incident, the country’s justice minister said.
The deaths on Wednesday bring the number of deaths in wildfires so far in the country to 13 this year. An elderly man and two forestry workers were killed in a wildfire that raged near the town of Odemis, in the Izmir province, earlier this month.
As temperatures in south-eastern Europe exceeded 40C for a seventh straight day, the Greek prime minister praised rescue workers for waging “a titanic battle” to bring blazes under control. “The state mechanism has been called to engage in a titanic battle, simultaneously responding to dozens of wildfires across the country,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement. “To those who saw their properties destroyed by the fury of fire, know that the state will stand by your side.”
Eleven regions of Greece face a “very high risk” of fire, and the government has appealed for help from EU partners to help it deal with fires burning on multiple fronts.
Emergency services said that while a conflagration that had injured two firefighters in Kryoneri, north-east of Athens, had been successfully quelled, fires around Messinia in the south-west Peloponnese and on the popular island of Kythera had not been contained.
The authorities were also battling flare-ups on the islands of Evia and Crete. In all of the stricken areas residents received messages to evacuate.
Several regions were placed under a red category 5 alert, the highest on the national scale, because of conditions exacerbated by the extreme weather that had turned terrain to tinder.
The National Observatory in Athens recorded a temperature of 45.8C (114.5F) in Messinia on Friday. On Saturday, the temperature reached 45.2C (113.4F) in Amfilochia, western Greece.
By late Sunday, as Czech firefighters and Italian water-bombers joined emergency teams in Greece, the focus turned to Kythera. Describing the destruction as “incalculable”, the public broadcaster ERT reported: “The first images are resonant of a biblical disaster as huge areas have been reduced to cinders and ash.”
The island’s deputy mayor, Giorgos Komninos, was cited as saying: “Everything, from houses, beehives [to] olive trees has been burnt.”
Two teams of forest commandos, 67 firefighters and scores of volunteers backed by 22 fire brigade trucks, three helicopters and two planes were struggling to douse flames that had ripped through prime agricultural and forest land on the island fuelled by gale-force winds. As flames approached, villagers were ordered to evacuate to safer areas, with 139 people, including tourists who were trapped on a beach, being rescued by the coast guard.
The meteorologist Panagiotis Yiannopoulos told ERT: “We are expecting the winds to get stronger right over Kythera and Crete, winds of six-beaufort strength from this evening until Tuesday evening, so a lot of very strong wind over many hours.”
In Turkey, where a record temperature of 50.5 C was registered in the province of Şirnak, in the south-east – surpassing a previous heat record of 49.5C in August 2023 – more than 1 700 people were forced to flee their homes after wildfires barrelled towards Bursa, the country’s fourth-largest city. Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian, described the scene as “an apocalypse”.
More than 1 100 firefighters were battling the flames, with authorities saying that at least 76 fires had broken out within a 24-hour period. Turkey has been hit by numerous heat-induced infernos for weeks.
On Sunday, Bursa’s mayor said a firefighter had died of a heart attack on the job, bringing the death toll to 14. Ten of the victims were rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed on Wednesday in a fire in the west of the country.
Dozens of fires were also reported in Albania over the weekend, where thousands were forced to evacuate homes in the southern town of Delvina.
Sources: The Guardian, Al Jazeera
