Death toll from Algeria wildfires rises to 12, dozens injured

Forest fires killed 12 people and injured dozens in northeastern Algeria on Wednesday, the interior minister and civil protection authorities said. The tolls rose from earlier local media reports of two deaths and an unspecified number of injuries in coastal Bejaia province, around 300 kilometres (190 miles) from the capital Algiers.

Five people were killed in Jijel province, four in Bejaia and three in Tizi Ouzou province, Interior Minister Said Sayoud told national television. A further 54 people were being treated for burns, including six serious cases, at a hospital in Bejaia, he said. An eight-year-old boy and a 22-year-old woman were among those killed in Bejaia, a local radio station reported.

Sayoud and Health Minister Mohamed Seddik Ait Messaoudene had travelled to Bejaia to "assess the progress of firefighting operations on the ground... and the condition of the injured", the official APS news agency reported. Many residents in Bejaia and Jijel have been evacuated, according to the civil protection agency and local media. As of 8:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Wednesday, firefighters were battling 69 blazes, the civil protection agency said.

Images broadcast by local site Jijel News showed panicked residents taking refuge in a post office as thick clouds of smoke billowed around them. Three major national highways connecting regions in the east of the country were closed due to forest fires near the cities of Bejaia, Jijel and Setif, the gendarmerie said. The civil protection agency said it had deployed significant resources to combat the blazes, which are being fuelled by strong winds.

Forest fires occur regularly in northern Algeria during the summer, but climate change is amplifying their impact by causing increasingly frequent droughts and intense heat. More than 30 people were killed in July 2023 when fires tore through thousands of hectares of forests and farmland, as well as hundreds of homes, in the area around Bejaia. Authorities recorded nearly 2,000 fires nationwide in July this year.

More than 100 people had to temporarily flee their homes in Annaba in late July as fires swept through the northeastern province, damaging nearly 150 homes. Official investigations often end with arrests for suspected arson. Four people in Constantine province have been placed in pre-trial detention in connection with the July fires.