​Wildfire Losses: Anecdotal Evidence

TURKEY - In Brief 04 Aug 2021 by Atilla Yesilada

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Turkey has witnessed an inordinate number of wildfires over the last two weeks, which caught the nation and the administration by surprise.To date, more than 161 forest fires had been reported in 16 different provinces. Wildfires are still raging in 5 cities in the South of turkey, but only one of them which is encroaching on Milas Coal-fired Power plant is posing a serious economic and environmental threat. While much fuss has been made about these fires and Erdogan’s mismanagement of them, I’m not sure about three important controversies: I find no evidence that the fires are the result of terror-arson attempts. The entire Mediterranean Basin is experiencing scorching weather with several littoral countries reporting extraordinary number of forest fires.While the government certainly could have prepared much better for climate change and drafted the help of municipalities, the army, NGOs and the defunct Turkish Aeronautics Foundation (founded by Ataturk) to respond faster and more effectively, the damage had been done by the looting of the Southern coastline and forests for commercial development years ago. There is much chest-beating about irreversible losses to national wealth and GDP, but I’m skeptical. This is a preliminary survey of the evidence of material losses I can find in the media and official reports. According to Izmir chamber of Forest Engineersa total of 557K square meters of trees had been burned, which is nothing compared to an estimated 29% of Turkey’s land mass covered by forests. I can count no more than 10K buildings and single residences which had been destroyed by fires.Daily Sabah reports.“According to the preliminary assessment of the Agricu...