Civil Defense announces full control of Algeria's fires

Algerian firefighters walk next to a charred bus.

AFP

The Civil Defense in Algeria announced control of all the fires that engulfed forested and urban areas in northeastern Algeria, which killed at least 38 people, a civil protection official told AFP.

"All the fires have been completely controlled," said Colonel Farouk Achour, an official in the Algerian Civil Protection.

The provisional death toll rose to 37, including 11 children and six women, in El Tarf, but the media reported the death of another victim, a 72-year-old man who died in Guelma (east).

During the past two days, more than 1,700 firefighting personnel were mobilized to contain about 20 fires, which left about 200 injured, including those with serious burns.

The Ministry of Justice opened an investigation to determine whether some of the fires that broke out were premeditated.

The Public Prosecutor's Office in Souk Ahras, where an entire family was killed in the fire and its members were buried the day before yesterday, announced the arrest of a vandal in a forest near this city of 500,000 people.

More than 350 families fled their homes and a hospital in a wooded area was evacuated.

The gendarmerie arrested three men near El Tarf on charges of setting fire to their neighbors' agricultural crops, but the authorities did not clarify whether these fires caused the horrific fires in the state.

Since the beginning of August, about 150 fires have broken out in Algeria, destroying hundreds of hectares of forests and woodland.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news