250 Flee As Turkish Rescuers Battle Wildfire In Gallipoli

Istanbul: More than 250 people were evacuated overnight as a wildfire raged on the Gallipoli peninsula flanking the Dardanelles Strait, where Turkish firefighters were battling Sunday to quench the blaze, officials said.

The fire began on Saturday in the northwestern province of Canakkale, and spread quickly due to high winds in the hills near the town of Gelibolu, on the shores of the busy shipping strait.

"As a precaution, 251 residents from five villages were relocated to safe areas," Canakkale governor Omer Toraman wrote on X.

Footage showed the hillsides illuminated by bright flames while huge clouds of smoke poured into the night air.

Toraman said the province, a popular destination for tourists visiting the ancient ruins of Troy, as well as the Gallipoli battleground where thousands of soldiers died in World War I, had suffered "extremely severe drought" over the past year.

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While the weather has been fairly normal for the time of year, much of northwestern Turkey has suffered strong winds in recent days, although they eased off on Sunday.

Firefighters worked through the night, with 12 planes and 18 helicopters rejoining the efforts at first light in an operation involving 900 people, the forestry directorate said on X.

The authority in charge of the war memorials said on X that access to historical sites near the town of Eceabat had been closed "due to the ongoing forest fire".

On Monday, another fire on the other side of the strait forced 2,000 people to flee, with around 80 treated for smoke inhalation.

Several days earlier, another fire forced the evacuation of 120 people and the suspension of shipping through the Dardanelles Strait, which links the Mediterranean with the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea.

According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) website, there have been 192 wildfires in Turkey this year, which have ravaged more than 110,373 hectares (273,000 acres) of land.

Experts say human-driven climate change is causing more frequent and more intense wildfires and other natural disasters, and have warned Turkey to take measures to tackle the problem.

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