Sawt Falasteen - Two dead as wildfires rage near Turkish resort of Izmir

Turkey, which was spared the recent heatwaves that gripped the rest of southern Europe, has been battling the effects of a long-term drought brought on by climate change.

One elderly victim died in a fire near Odemis, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Izmir, in one of three villages evacuated in the area, an opposition lawmaker told Halk TV.

"The village was evacuated but an elderly, bedridden patient could not be saved," said Salih Uzun, a lawmaker in Izmir for the main opposition CHP party.

A forest worker in the same area died as he battled the blazes, the country's agriculture minister Ibrahim Yumakli said on X.

Another major fire was raging near Cesme, some 80 kilometres west of Izmir, which began late on Wednesday and forced the evacuation of a further three villages.

"The biggest problem is the wind speed of up to 85 kilometres per hour (53 miles per hour) which is causing the fire to spread very quickly. And it constantly changes direction," Izmir governor Suleyman Elban said.

The highway linking Izmir to Cesme temporarily closed Thursday afternoon, but was reopened in the evening, Elban said on X.

In both places, a total of "nine planes, 22 helicopters and 1,100 (fire trucks and other) vehicles are intensively fighting the fires", the governor told reporters.

He said both fires in the province, as well as those that began at the weekend and were brought under control, "were caused by power cables".

- Fires contained in Antalya, Istanbul -

Earlier, two other fires broke out -- one in the southern resort of Antalya and the second in Istanbul's Sultan Gazi forest.

They were quickly contained by firefighters, officials said.

Footage from Antalya showed flames raging in a forested area near a residential area in Lara, a popular tourist resort with many large hotels, but a municipal official told AFP it was under control.

Since Friday, hundreds of fires have been reported across drought-hit Turkey, fuelled by high winds.

On Monday, more than 50,000 people were evacuated, mostly in the Izmir area but also from the southern province of Hatay, the AFAD disaster management agency said.

According to figures on the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) website, there have been 90 wildfires in Turkey so far this year that have ravaged more than 35,082 hectares (86,689 acres) of land.

The figure on Monday was nearly 15,000 hectares destroyed in 65 fires.

Citing forestry ministry figures, meteorologist Ismail Kucuk told AFP that "90 percent of forest fires" were due to man-made causes.

Power cables posed a risk if they were not properly maintained, said Kucuk, secretary general of Turkey's chamber of metrology engineers.

In some regions, cables broke easily because they had not been maintained since electricity distribution companies had been privatised, he said.

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.

D.Khalil--SF-PST