Turkey’s Lungs Are on Fire

The fires, which have been increasing all over the world for the last few years, started in 22 provinces of Turkey as of 27 July and continue to spread. Despite efforts to stop these fires, most have not yet been stopped. Fires, especially in tourist areas with the highest temperatures, have caused great damage to nature, local people and their shelters and properties, and to tourists in the region. Local media published photos of the popular Aegean Sea resorts surrounded by burning hillsides and forest and farmland reduced to ash. At Bodrum, in Muğla province, 80 hectares (197 acres) were burnt despite firefighting efforts on the ground and by air. The flames cut off two hotels, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,000 tourists and staff by coastguard and fishing vessels. The death of 4 people, the destruction of forest areas, the damage to countless living things in nature are some of the irreversible damages. “Those numbers are off the scale compared to the last 19 years,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist in the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. He said the smoke from fires near Antalya and Mersin was now drifting to Cyprus. So, what are the main causes of forest fires that increase worldwide with climate change, what can be done now and what are the measures that can be taken for the future so that these damages do not recur?

The heat intensity of wildfires in Turkey on Thursday was four times higher than anything on record for the nation, according to satellite data passed on to the Guardian.

The flames show that this summer, the new world’s perception of temperature and summer is changing, perhaps even the meaning of summer for future generations will begin to change. Fires that are part of a wider wave of wildfires affecting the Mediterranean, continue to occur rapidly in regions in Lebanon, Syria, Greece, Italy and Cyprus too.

The climate crisis and global warming, which have been the catalyst for the severe fires that have been going on in America, Canada and Siberia for several years, are now increasing the impact and damaging nature of the fires in Turkey. Çağatay Tavşanoğlu, a biology professor specializing in fire ecology at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, said the fires in the Mediterranean basin are an annual event, but the extent of this year’s fires should be a warning. Tavsanoglu said, “Many fires could not be extinguished and there was a very rapid burning with the effect of dry winds.” “This is just the first indication of what climate change will do to the Mediterranean region in the future.”

If we look at the main causes of fires, we should make a basic introduction. There are some regions in the world that are called fire-related ecosystems. Fire is seen as a natural part of these regions, especially during summer events.

Fire ecosystems in the world

Source: https://cdn.evrimagaci.org/I7rCMiw7W5rR2zOtfyn4gbXFifw=/825×0/filters:no_upscale():format(webp)/evrimagaci.org%2Fpublic%2Fcontent_media%2F27af40d552ab5dff9614fa3e2c6eb20f.png

According to İsmail Bekar, this process, which has existed for millions of years, is a natural process that has helped shape the ecosystem. However, with the increase of global warming, the great increase in hot winds and air temperatures has transformed this process of natural fire ecosystems into gigantic fires with harmful effects. Map of fires in the world in the last 24 hours:

While the forests in the specified regions are the regions that can regenerate by renewing themselves after the fires, the fires in Turkey outside these regions are the main concern. An example of fire ecosystems that can renew themselves and their biodiversity after fires:

Again, according to Çağatay Tavşanoğlu, Mediterranean plants have the capacity to renew their populations, and even biodiversity increases as a result of this natural process. For this reason, there are many experts who argue that planting trees for relief purposes in burning areas will do more damage to the region than forest fires. In the fires this year, apart from the natural process, fires have also occurred outside the regions with fire ecosystems in Turkey, and there is no definite information about the causes of these fires yet. Government ministers speculated that the cause may be arson attacks by the Kurdish separatist movement PKK, but provided no evidence. Few domestic reports mentioned broader climate trends that are heightening the dangers of fire in Turkey and elsewhere.

However, in addition to the unknown causes of fires in some places, there is another important issue, “fire response”. The scarcity of the measures taken in Turkey, the indifference of the authorized institutions and people, the existence of only 3 dysfunctional fire extinguishers, increased the grievances of the citizens in the region.

Climate scientists have long predicted the Mediterranean will be hard hit by rising temperatures and changes in rainfall, driven by human emissions. Future wildfire risk is projected to increase in southern Europe, according to the last report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Regarding forest fires, which have become difficult to control worldwide due to global warming, minimizing human errors, minimizing the use of services and substances harmful to nature, countries need to come together both personally and with each other to make regime and future plans based on global security ethics regarding the new global warming. Most importantly, we must close all nature, seas, forests and lands to purely commercial and climate-insensitive policies.

Turkey continues to burn, and although the fires cannot be extinguished, they continue to spread. The people, who started to ask for help from other countries and international committees, started social media campaigns due to the lack of state capacity.

“The catastrophe is not something that will begin in the near future, it is already among us and is here, not in a distant African or Asian country.  To be clear, we will have to get used to living with many simultaneous crises. “

Slavoj Zizek

Samiha Hande TOPRAK

References

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/world/middleeast/turkey-fires-mediterranean-lebanon.html

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/climate-change-increases-risk-fires-western-us

https://www.borealforest.org/world/innova/forest_fire.htm#:~:text=Forest%20fires%20always%20start%20by,to%20any%20number%20of%20reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1VQPOaeViI&t=175s

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/30/turkish-fires-sweeping-through-tourist-areas-are-the-hottest-on-record