Talk:Wildfires in Turkey

Improvements needed if you have time

@Borgenland @Sessep @TonyFerro

Thanks very much for recent info - might you have time to improve this general article? For example by adding info from the General Directorate of Forestry on the causes of previous fires and replacing Daily Sabah cites with more reliable sources. Lead needs expanding and some of the info needs putting in general sections rather than by year - for example causes are sometimes similar. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:59, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Is Sabah a reliable source?

I chased up https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedi_tart%C4%B1%C5%9Fma:G%C3%BCvenilir_kaynaklar/M%C3%BCtemadi_kaynaklar#Sabah? as they have been investigating since 2021 Chidgk1 (talk) 09:38, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Seedling donation movement

This was the text before I attempted to summarize it:

Specifically for 2021 Turkish wildfires, a non-governmental organization in Turkey, Environmental Organizations Solidarity Association, has initiated seedling donation movement.

Following the defeat of Turkey women's national volleyball team by South Korea women's national volleyball team in quarterfinal at the 2020 Summer Olympics with set scores of 3 – 2, most of the players in Turkey women's national volleyball team bursted out their tears. After the reason of their sorrow has been known throughout the Internet, South Korean netizens initiated voluntary seedling donation movement through ÇEKUD in the name of Kim Yeon-koung or Korea Volleyball Federation to help Turkey for 2021 Turkish wildfires.

ÇEKUD began their work to establish Turkey-Korea Friendship Forest Areas in several damaged areas, beginning on 18 November 2021 in Antalya Province. On 1 April 2022, Turkey completed planting operation. According to ÇEKUD, six zones of "Turkey-Korea Friendship Forest" are made: 30,000 in Antalya, 40,000 in Nevşehir, 25,000 in Kilis, 15,000 in Istanbul, 30,000 in Muğla and 10,000 in Osmaniye, thus 150,000 donated trees among 580,000, in total.

References

Investigation of 2021 causes

This was the text before I removed it and wrote a bit for 2020 instead:

As of August 2021, figures for 2020 fire starting have not yet been published by the General Directorate of Forestry,but in 2019 no fires were known to have been caused by terrorism, and in 2018, out of the 2167 total fires 6 are known to have been started by terrorists according to official statistics. However, what started almost half of the 2688 fires in 2019 was unknown: the most common known fire starters were lightning (372) and intentional stubble burning (184).

Boğaziçi University climatologist Levent Kurnaz said that the extremely hot and dry weather helped to start the fires. Some meteorologists also mention the foehn effect. Hikmet Özturk, forestry expert working with the Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion, said that although wildfires are almost always started by people, effects of climate change on wildfires are making their spread worse.

The state-run TRT World, among others, wrote quickly about the possibility of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union, the United States and many other countries) being behind the fires. One article by TRT called the PKK the "prime suspect" because "environmental destruction is one of the methods of vengeance used by the group." This was denied by the PKK, as well as the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK). According to some reports, there were racist attacks on Kurds after it was reported that the PKK was behind the fires. Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu stated that they had "no security intelligence" yet to support the claim that wildfires were being caused by arson attacks. As of August 2021 official investigation concerning the causes of the fires continues, including possible arson or negligence.

References