Wildfires in Algeria leave 32 dead, including 25 soldiers (UPDATE)

[Omaha Steve]

Last edited Tue Aug 10, 2021, 04:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: AP

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — At least 25 Algerian soldiers were killed saving residents from the wildfires ravaging mountain forests and villages east of the capital, the president announced Tuesday night as the death toll from the blazes crept up to at least 32.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers saved 100 citizens from the blazes in two areas of Kabyle, the region that is home to the North African nation’s Berber population. Eleven soldiers were burned burned fighting the fires, four of them seriously, the Defense Ministry said.

The Kabyle region, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Algeria’s capital of Algiers, is dotted with difficult-to-access villages and has limited water. Some villagers were fleeing, while others tried to hold back the flames themselves, using buckets, branches and rudimentary tools. The region has no water-dumping planes.

The deaths and injuries Tuesday occurred around Kabyle’s capital of Tizi-Ouzou, which is flanked by mountains, and in Bejaia, which borders the Mediterranean Sea.



Burned trees are pictured near Tizi Ouzou some 100 km (62 miles) east of Algiers following wildfires in this mountainous region, Tuesday, Aug.10, 2021. Firefighters were battling a rash of fires in northern Algeria that have killed at least six people in the mountainous Kabyle region, the interior minister said Tuesday, accusing "criminal hands" for some of the blazes. (AP Photo/Fateh Guidoum)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/africa-fires-forests-algeria-e77be95a389bb6744d51f3ddf9279b7d

[secondwind]

1. So much devastation.................

[NickB79]

2. I can't imagine there were many forests left in Algeria before the wildfires

Northern Africa used to be Rome's breadbasket, with rich soil and forested slopes. A thousand years of human abuse later, and it's rocks and scrublands.