WATCH: Bathing tourists calmly look on as firefighting aircraft scoop water from the sea to tackle raging Turkish forest inferno
July 28, 2021
Tourists and locals in Turkey’s Manavgat district were filmed calmly enjoying the beach and wandering around the city despite a blazing fire threatening devastation as it spreads on the outskirts of the residential area.
One Twitter user even shared a video of beachgoers continuing their trip to the shoreline despite the sky turning red due to the ongoing fire and a helicopter gathering water from the ocean to use on the fire in an attempt to bring it back under control.
Turkey deployed 106 fire engines, 15 helicopters, and two planes on Wednesday in an attempt to extinguish a raging forest fire on the edge of Manavgat in the Antalya province, as the flames drew closer to the town.
The provincial authority in Manavgat confirmed that officials are in the process of “trying to take control of a massive fire,” as footage circulating on social media shows the blaze sending smoke into the air above residential properties.
It’s not unusual for fires to burn through the forest during the summer months, but the proximity of this blaze to homes and businesses has forced authorities to rush into action in order to prevent it from spreading further.
So far, four separate areas of the Manavgat district have been impacted by the fire, which has damaged hectares of forest and forced the evacuation of a number of neighborhoods by the area’s mayor, Sukru Sozen.
The concerning blaze comes as Turkey experiences numerous heat waves throughout the country, recording its hottest May in 51 years just two months ago and the hottest days of the year in recent weeks.
The fire in Manavgat follows a similar blaze in a dense area of woodland near the resort town of Mugla, on the country’s southwestern coast in late June. The Mugla Regional Directorate of Forestry confirmed that one forest worker, 38-year-old Gorkem Hasdemir, died tackling that blaze, as the windy conditions presented significant challenges to the firefighters.
Also in June, Antalya’s Kas district and Icel’s Tarsus district were afflicted by forest fires that destroyed hectares of land and forced emergency services to battle for hours to bring them under control.
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