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Istanbul
AP
 — 

Wildfires that have engulfed Turkey for weeks threatened the country’s fourth-largest city early Sunday, causing more than 1,700 people to flee their homes and leaving a firefighter dead.

Meanwhile, firefighters elsewhere in the region, including Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro, were also battling blazes fed by unusually high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds.

Overnight fires in the forested mountains surrounding Bursa in northwest Turkey spread rapidly, tinting the night sky over the city’s eastern suburbs with a red glow. Dozens of severe wildfires have hit the country daily since late June, with the government declaring two western provinces, Izmir and Bilecik, disaster areas on Friday.

Bursa governor’s office said in a statement Sunday that 1,765 people had been safely evacuated from villages to the northeast as more than 1,900 firefighters battled the flames. The highway linking Bursa to the capital, Ankara, was closed as surrounding forests burned.

A firefighter died from a heart attack while on the job, the city’s mayor, Mustafa Bozbey, said in a statement, adding that the flames had scorched 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) around the city.

Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian for the province, described the scene as “an apocalypse.”

By morning, lessening winds brought some respite to firefighters, who continued efforts to battle the flames. However, TV footage revealed an ashen landscape where farms and pine forests had earlier stood.

Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said fire crews across the country confronted 84 separate blazes Saturday. The country’s northwest was under the greatest threat, including Karabuk, where wildfires have burned since Tuesday, he said.

Unseasonably high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds have been fueling the wildfires.

The General Directorate of Meteorology said Turkey recorded its highest ever temperature of 50.5 degrees Celsius (122.9 degrees Fahrenheit) in the southeastern Sirnak province on Friday. The highest temperatures for July were seen in 132 other locations, it said.

Fourteen people have died in recent weeks, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed Wednesday in a fire in Eskisehir in western Turkey.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said late Saturday that prosecutors had investigated fires in 33 provinces since June 26, and that legal action had been taken against 97 suspects.

In Greece, firefighters battled active wildfires in the country’s southwest and on the island of Kythera on Sunday, following a blaze that scorched the northern Athens suburb of Kryoneri on Saturday. High temperatures, reaching 38°C (100°F) or more, persist across much of the country, though winds have eased slightly.

In Kryoneri, 27 residents were evacuated overnight with police assistance after some initially ignored warnings. Authorities urged the public to comply with evacuation orders, warning that resistance puts both civilians and rescuers in danger.

The fire service reported three people hospitalized with breathing issues and one firefighter treated for burns at a military hospital. On the island of Evia, where another fire is now under control, media reports indicate large numbers of animals perished in barns.

On Bulgaria’s southern borders with Greece and Turkey, as well as the western Serbian frontier, firefighters battled wildfires as the government declared the worst-hit provinces disaster zones. Residents across nearly half the country were issued with a code red warning, the highest level.

National Fire Service chief Alexander Djartov told reporters that 236 wildfires were burning, many fanned by strong winds. The government had asked EU partners for help, he added, and aircraft were expected from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Hungary and Sweden later Sunday.

In the southwestern Strumyani region, overnight blazes forced firefighters to retreat. They were reinforced Sunday by soldiers. Dozens of people fled their homes in the western Tran region as flames threatened villages near the Serbian border.

Dozens of people have been killed in an attack by an Islamic State affiliate in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials say.

About 20 of the dead were worshippers taking part in a night vigil at a church in the town of Komanda when they were attacked by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) fighters, they say.

Nearby shops and businesses were looted and set on fire.

The ADF emerged in Uganda in the 1990s, accusing the government there of persecuting Muslims, but is now based over the border in DR Congo, where it regularly attacks civilians of all religions, as well as in Uganda.

It has since become part of the Islamic State’s Central African Province, which also includes a group in Mozambique.

According to research by BBC Monitoring, nearly 90% of IS operations are now carried out by affiliates in Africa.

Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, told the Associated Press that more bodies could be found after the latest attack.

“More than 21 people were shot dead inside and outside [the church] and we have recorded at least three charred bodies and several houses burned. But the search is continuing.”

Father Aime Lokana Dhego, a local priest, told the AFP news agency: “We have at least 31 dead members of the Eucharistic Crusade movement, with six seriously injured. Some young people were kidnapped, we have no news of them.”

He added that seven other bodies had been found elsewhere in the town.

The UN-sponsored Radio Okapi website put the number of dead at 43.

A spokesperson for the army said he could confirm 10 deaths.

In 2021, DR Congo invited Ugandan troops into the country to help tackle the ADF. Attacks however still continue.

Komanda is in DR Congo’s mineral-rich Ituri province, which has been fought over by various armed groups for many years.