At least 25 soldiers and 17 civilians have lost their lives in the raging wildfires towards the east of the capital of Algeria-- Algiers-- Prime Minister Aymen Benabderrahmane said.
Thick clouds of smoke covered much of the mountainous Kabyle region. Fires in Algeria come right at the heels of fires in Mediterranean nations-- Turkey, Lebanon, Greece and Cyprus.
Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud said, he believed arsonists ignited the flames.
“Only criminal hands can be behind the simultaneous outbreak of about 50 fires across several localities,” he told Reuters. Temperature for Tuesday and Wednesday was forecasted to be at 46 deg C. The world, on the whole, has become warmer by 1.2 degrees C since the industrial era began.
The fires in Greece, Lebanon, Turkey and Cyprus were a result of an increase in temperatures. Over 100 residents were rescued from the Tizi Ouzou region in Kabyle, where residents used tree branches and hurled water to smother fires in the forest. Some of the soldiers were killed while putting out the fires and others after they were cut off by the spreading fire, locals told AP. Algiers has several hard-to-access villages, with limited water supplies.
Prime Minister Ayman Benabderrahmane said the government was in “advanced talks with partners to hire planes and help speed up the process of extinguishing fires.”
Firefighters and the army are still trying to contain the blazes. According to climate scientists, there is little doubt that man-made climate change is causing extremes in weather like drought, wildfires, floods and storms.
