More than 1,500 wildfires in 20 days in İzmir: Mayor

İZMİR

The number of fires occurring in the western province of İzmir has increased sharply, with firefighters interfering in more than 1,500 fires between July 1 and 20, the metropolitan municipality’s mayor has said.

“There were 1,556 fires in 20 days. Some 1,473 of them were quickly extinguished,” Tunç Soyer said on his visit to the city fire department.

“Only 57 of them were partially burned, and 26 of them were extinguished after full combustion despite all efforts,” he added.

Thanking all the firefighters, Soyer stated that 60 percent of the fires in the last 20 days were caused by cigarette stubs.

“The fires of garden garbage, 20 percent of which are burned, are not completely extinguished. In short, these fires are mostly caused by human hands. Our friends are fighting hard. This problem will continue in the coming days,” he added.

Calling İzmir “the most fire-resistant city in Türkiye,” the mayor pointed out the importance of a system called “Intelligent Warning System.”

According to Soyer, firefighters could easily detect even the lightest smoke with the artificial intelligence system.

He stated that the image, location and type of the detected fire were sent to the teams by the system thanks to the software program, and thus it was extinguished at the beginning.