ALGIERS/ ATHENS: Thirty-four people including 10 soldiers were killed in forest fires in Algeria on Monday, in the mountainous regions of Bejaia and Bouira, Algerian authorities said, as a heatwave spreads across north Africa and southern Europe.

The interior ministry said that it is continuing its firefighting operations in the Boumerdes, Bouira, Tizi Ouzou, Jijel, Bejaia and Skikda regions. 7,500 firefighters and 350 firetrucks were mobilised to fight the flames, aided by aerial fire-fighting support, the interior ministry said.

Operations were underway to extinguish fires in six provinces, it added, calling on citizens to “avoid areas affected by the fires” and to report new blazes on toll-free phone numbers. “Civil protection services remain mobilised until the fires are completely extinguished,” the ministry said. About 1,500 people have been evacuated so far.

Mediterranean heatwave

Fires regularly rage through forests and fields in Algeria in summer, and this year have been exacerbated by a heatwave that has seen several Mediterranean countries break temperature records.

In neighbouring Tunisia, temperatures on Monday neared 50 degrees Celsius.

Tunisia’s state energy supplies STEG announced planned half-hour to one-hour power cuts in a bid to preserve the network’s performance.

Last week, a major blaze raged in a Tunisian pine forest near the border with Algeria.A border crossing had to close temporarily, according to Tunisian officials who confirmed 470 hectares (1,100 acres) of forest had been burned.

In some other North African countries such as Morocco and Libya, temperatures were relatively normal compared to annual averages.

Algeria’s state energy firm Sonelgaz on Sunday reported a peak in electricity consumption at 18,697 megawatts.

‘Difficult days ahead’

Authorities evacuated nearly 2,500 people from the Greek island of Corfu on Monday as the prime minister warned that the heat-battered nation was “at war” with several wildfires and spoke of three difficult days ahead.

Tens of thousands of people have already fled blazes on the island of Rhodes, with many frightened tourists scrambling to get home on evacuation flights.

About 2,400 visitors and locals were evacuated from the Ionian tourist island of Corfu from Sunday into Monday, a fire service spokesman said, adding that the departures were a precaution. Fires were also burning on Greece’s second largest island of Evia on Monday.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2023