Homes and shops ravaged by a tornado of fire: firefighters were still hard at work on Tuesday to put an end to violent fires which hit the north and east of Algeria and caused at least 34 deaths since Sunday.
“Until 8:30 a.m. this morning (07:30 GMT), out of 97 declared fires, only 15 remain”, including two in Béjaïa, the wilaya (prefecture) most affected by these fires, Civil Protection Information Officer Karim Belhafsi told national television on Tuesday.
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 past two years by serious fires in which nearly 130 people had died.
Soldiers found themselves 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, an undetermined number of wounded, some of whom were 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 fire tornadoes approached their homes. Coastal seaside 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 wooded and have been subjected to an intense heat wave for weeks with peaks that reached 48 degrees on Monday.
The heat wave dried out the vegetation, making it even more vulnerable to the slightest outbreak of fire. The fires were also fanned by strong winds, according to various testimonies to local media.
In neighboring Tunisia, in the border area of Tabarka, in the northwest, serious fires also affected on Monday an area already ravaged by flames the previous week.
An AFP team was able to observe significant damage and saw helicopters and Canadair water bombers intervene. More than 300 inhabitants of the village of Melloula were transferred to safer areas by sea and others left the area by land.
In August 2022, gigantic fires killed 37 in the region of El Tarf, in the northeast. The summer of 2021 had been the deadliest in decades: more than 90 people had died in fires that devastated the north, in particular Kabylia.
“GREEN NUMBERS”
Local media footage showed burning fields and scrubland, charred cars and burnt-out storefronts. Witnesses described devouring tongues of fire suddenly going off “like a blowtorch”.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune sent his condolences to the families on Monday.
More than 8,000 civil protection agents and 525 trucks have been mobilized, according to the authorities.
Recently chartered fire-fighting 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 reports” of fire.
The public prosecutor of Béjaïa ordered, according to a press release, the opening of preliminary investigations to determine the causes of the fires and identify possible perpetrators.
KILLER SUMMER
Every summer, the north and east of Algeria are hit by forest fires, a phenomenon which is accentuated from year to year under the effect of climate change, leading to droughts and heat waves.
To avoid the reissue of two consecutive murderous summers, the authorities had sounded the mobilization in the spring, in particular by developing helicopter landing areas in 10 wilayas (prefectures) and mobilizing locally made drones for the prevention of fires.
The Ministry of the Interior announced in May the purchase of a large water bomber and the rental 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 the invasion of this country by Russia.
