Algeria: Extensive damage and at least 34 dead in violent fires

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: FETHI BELAID / AFP 11:49 am, July 25, 2023

Homes and shops ravaged by a fire tornado: firefighters were still working Tuesday to overcome violent fires that have hit northern and eastern Algeria and caused at least 34 deaths since Sunday. "Until this morning 8:30 am (07:30 GMT), out of 97 fires declared, there are only 15 left," including two in Béjaïa, the wilaya (prefecture) most affected by these fires, said Tuesday the head of Information of the Civil Protection, Karim Belhafsi, on national television.

According to him, the Ministry of the Interior should soon publish a statement to announce "the total extinction of all fires". The fires affected more than 15 prefectures, especially those of Bouira, Jijel and Béjaïa, areas already affected in the last two years by serious fires in which nearly 130 people had died. Soldiers were surrounded by flames as they were evacuated from Beni Ksila, in the Béjaïa area, accompanied by residents of neighboring hamlets, said the Ministry of Defense, which announced the death of 10 soldiers.

In addition to the death toll, wounded, in undetermined number but some seriously burned, are to be deplored, according to the governor of Béjaïa. More than 1,500 people had to be evacuated from some villages as tornadoes of fire approached their homes. Coastal resorts popular with summer visitors were also destroyed by the flames. The affected villages, many of which are located in the mountainous region of Kabylia, are heavily forested and have been subjected for weeks to an intense heat wave with peaks that reached 48 degrees on Monday.

The heat wave dried up vegetation, making it even more vulnerable to the slightest start of fire. The fires were further fanned by high winds, according to various testimonies to local media. In neighboring Tunisia, in the northwestern border area of Tabarka, serious fires also hit a region already ravaged by flames the previous week on Monday.

An AFP team saw extensive damage and saw helicopters and Canadair water bombers respond. More than 300 residents of Melloula village were relocated to safer areas by sea and others left by land. In August 2022, huge fires killed 37 people in the northeastern region of El Tarf. The summer of 2021 had been the deadliest in decades: more than 90 people died in fires that devastated the north, especially Kabylia.

"Toll-free numbers"

Local media footage showed fields and maquis on fire, charred cars and storefronts burned to the ground. Witnesses described all-consuming tongues of fire suddenly going off "like a blowtorch." Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Monday sent his condolences to the families. More than 8,000 civil protection officers and 525 trucks have been mobilized, according to authorities.

Recently chartered firefighting planes and helicopters as well as a high-capacity bomber intervened to drop water on the fires. The Interior Ministry called on citizens to "avoid the affected areas and use the toll-free numbers made available to make any report" of fire. The prosecutor general of Béjaïa ordered, according to a statement, the opening of preliminary investigations to determine the causes of the fires and identify possible perpetrators.

Deadly Summer

Every summer, northern and eastern Algeria are hit by forest fires, a phenomenon that increases year after year under the effect of climate change, leading to droughts and heat waves. To avoid the repetition of two consecutive deadly summers, the authorities had sounded the mobilization in the spring, including setting up helicopter landing areas in 10 wilayas (prefectures) and mobilizing locally made drones for fire prevention.

The Interior Ministry announced in May the purchase of a large water bomber and the lease of six others in South America. Algeria had also placed an order with Russia for four water bombers, but their delivery was delayed by the "repercussions of the crisis in Ukraine" after Russia's invasion of that country.