Wildfires rage in western Turkey for a 3rd straight day exacerbated by windy and dry weather

ISTANBUL -- Wildfires raged across western Turkey for a third straight day Saturday, exacerbated by high winds and warm temperatures, authorities said.

More than 130 fires have erupted across the country in the past week, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate. Most have been brought under control, but eight major fires continued in a number of provinces including Izmir, Aydin, Manisa, Karabuk and Bolu.

Thousands of firefighters were tackling the blazes on land and from the air, with dozens of aircraft and hundreds of vehicles aiding in the emergency response.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from the affected areas, but there have been no reported casualties, according to Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli, who spoke to reporters Saturday as he toured the affected provinces.

Yumakli cited low humidity, high winds and high temperatures as exacerbating factors. The General Directorate of Forestry warned people not to light fires outside for the next 10 days because of the weather conditions across western Turkey, warning of a 70% greater risk of wildfires. Firefighters extinguished on Friday a blaze in Canakkale province that threatened World War I memorials and graves at the Gallipoli battle site.

At the peninsula where an Allied landing was beaten back by Ottoman troops in a yearlong campaign in 1915, the flames reached Canterbury Cemetery, where soldiers from New Zealand are interred. Images of the site in northwest Turkey showed soot-blackened gravestones in a scorched garden looking out over the Aegean Sea.

Meanwhile, authorities detained four people in Bolu in connection with the fires, two of whom were arrested and two released.

In June, a fire spread through settlements in southeast Turkey, killing 11 people and leaving dozens of others requiring medical treatment.