July 30, 2021: At least three people were killed and dozens were hospitalized after two separate forest fires caused by strong winds, officials said Thursday.

The fire broke out on Wednesday near the Mediterranean coastal town of Manavgat, in the province of Antalya, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said. But another fire that started early Thursday ignited a fire in the Akseki district, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north. The blaze killed three people, and authorities evacuated about 20 neighborhoods or villages.

The governor of the district, Volkan Hulur, told the official Anadolu Agency that the dead included an 82-year-old man from the Kepesbelini neighborhood of Akseki, where about 80% houses were on fire.

The Turkish government’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD, said that along with the three victims, at least 112 people were “affected” by the fires, including 58 who were hospitalized, mostly for smoke inhalation.

Authorities also rescued 10 people trapped in a restaurant by a dam near Akseki. A number of homes, businesses, crops and vehicles were damaged in Managgat, but no details were released, the AFAD said.

“At the moment, there is no immediate threat to any settlement or life, but in the coming hours, if the wind changes direction, we will need to take more precautions,” Pakdemerli, the forest minister, told reporters.

According to officials, the Antalya region is a popular holiday destination for tourists from Russia and other parts of Europe, but officials have not affected any of the holiday airports.

According to Anadolu, firefighters were also battling wildfires in other parts of Turkey, including one that temporarily closed a highway between the southern Turkish city of Mersin and Antalya.

Forest fires are common in the Mediterranean and Aegean regions of Turkey during the summer months, although some forest fires have been blamed on arson.

Meanwhile, on social media, the Turkish public on Thursday accused the “Children of Fire Initiative” affiliated with the PKK terrorist group of blaming the recent fires in Turkey because sympathizers of the PKK hailed the forest fires.

The PKK has a long history of burning Turkish forests as a means of “revenge” by the Turkish state and in the process inflicting civilian casualties and environmental destruction.

Earlier in the day, wildfires spread to the southern Turkish provinces, from Antalya’s summer voyage to Adana and Mersin. The fire broke out on Wednesday after residential areas became a threat.

Their almost consecutive nature has raised fears that they may be the result of arson attacks, which Turkish citizens have blamed on the PKK. The so-called “initiative” has not yet claimed responsibility for the fire, but its past makes it the first suspect in the incident.

Murat Karayilan, one of the PKK’s top members, had earlier in a statement praised the use of firearms in terrorist attacks. “Two or three young people can get along well and do something. They may say, ‘We don’t have weapons,’ but their weapons are lighters and matches.”

Another senior PKK terrorist, Semdin Sakik, had earlier said that the terrorist group would resort to similar operations if necessary. “If we give up our weapons, we will go to Bodrum and burn their boats, we will go to Antalya to burn their greenhouses, we will go to Istanbul and burn our cars and we will go to Izmir,” he said. So that the forests can be burned. “

The fire broke out in Manavgut, a town in Antalya province that is popular with holidaymakers. It exploded Wednesday afternoon in four different parts of the forested city. It did not reach the town center but affected the surrounding villages.

18 villages and neighborhoods have been evacuated, while authorities have announced that 62 people have been hospitalized to avoid burning and smoking. Three people were killed in the blaze, and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) announced Thursday that 122 people had been “affected” by the blaze, with 58 still hospitalized.

Another fire broke out in the town of Marmaris, another popular holiday town in western Antalya, which raised concerns despite being much smaller than the Managagat fire. Firefighters battled the blaze, which broke out in an area where another forest fire destroyed a small piece of forest last month.

Television footage showed hotels approaching the area. Hours later, a fire broke out in Bodrum, an area that is probably better known as Marmaris as a holiday, in the area that connects the area to Miles District in Mugla Province.

Elsewhere, a forest fire broke out in the Kozan district of Adana Wednesday evening and again, strong winds fanned the flames. Firefighters battled the flames until the early hours of Thursday, while seven villages near the fire’s epicenter in a rural part of the district were evacuated.

Cumali Yücel, a local, told DHA that “a small fire” on the banks of a dam reservoir got out of control quickly and reached their neighborhood. Yücel, who lost his house to the fire, said security forces took them to safety. In Mersin, Aydıncık and Bozyazı towns were gripped with forest fires Wednesday. Wildfires that had started in pine forests continued into Thursday. Another fire broke out in Silifke district in the early hours of Thursday, leading to a brief closure of a road connecting Mersin to Antalya.

Also in Adana, a fire broke out in a forest in the Aladağ district and led to evacuations, while 10 people trapped in a burning area were rescued. Three neighborhoods in areas near the fire were evacuated. Adana Governor Süleyman Elban told reporters that 22 forest fires broke out in Adana Wednesday and 20 of them were put out on the same day.

In Adana’s neighboring Osmaniye province, firefighters were still fighting Thursday to contain flames from a forest fire that broke out near a village on Wednesday. Helicopters and planes poured water on the fire while bulldozers struggled to clear the path for firefighters trying to reach the scene by land.

Last October, four provinces around Turkey also fell victim to the PKK’s hatred of nature, with almost simultaneous fires destroying forests in various parts of the country. Turkish authorities were quick to detain suspected arsonists who burned forestland in southern Hatay province’s Belen district, and it was not long before a PKK-aligned terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The “Children of Fire Initiative” praised the heinous attack on Turkey’s forests, and praised the terrorists who set the fire. The so-called “initiative” has been responsible for a number of arson attacks in recent years, and the group is known for its close ties to the PKK terrorist group.

The group said, “No word or lie will stop the fire from coming to your factories and your military areas,” adding that they were saluting their “natural members” who Performed arson in Belen district. The group added that the district is known as a stronghold of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

“Children of Fire” was also involved in several initial fires by Turkish authorities. However, the PKK is partially active in the Amanos Mountains, extending south from the Torres mountain range in the Kahramanmara to the Ottoman and Haitian provinces.

Turkish security forces have been conducting regular operations in the region to prevent the terrorist group from finding a safe passage from war-torn Syria.

Meanwhile, PKK sympathizers took to social media and, in a collective effort to propagate terrorism, further expressed their hatred of the jungle through mocking fire jokes.

In a written statement published on a pro-PKK website, the group took responsibly for starting 27 separate fires in western metropolitan cities between July 11 and Aug. 24, including in the western province of Izmir, which affected more than 500 hectares of forest in the Karabağlar, Menderes and Seferihisar districts.

The terror group uses various tools to wrongfully accuse Turkish forces of destruction in the areas it has cleared in successful counterterrorism operations, said sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Formed in 1978, the PKK recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union has been waging violent attacks against the state and citizens since 1984, during which nearly 40,000 people have been killed.

In addition to suicide bombings, deadly ambushes and massacres of civilians, the PKK either claimed or was accused of starting many forest fires in the past.

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