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3 killed in wildfires in western Turkey

Three people died in wildfires that swept through a forested area in the Çeşme district of İzmir province on Monday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The cause of the fire, which has been contained, has not yet been determined.

The victims reportedly went missing in the area when the fire broke out.

Residents living in the villages around the area have been evacuated as a precaution.

Last month 12 people died in wildfires in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. Hundreds of animals also perished in the blaze that roared across the dry landscape in Mardin and Diyarbakır provinces.

Turkey has experienced 74 wildfires so far this year, which have ravaged 12,910 hectares (31,900 acres) of land, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

Turkey suffered its worst-ever wildfires in the summer of 2021. They claimed nine lives and destroyed huge swaths of forested land across its Mediterranean and Aegean coasts.

The disaster sparked a political crisis after it emerged that Turkey had no functioning firefighting planes.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was pressured to accept international help.

It also prompted Ankara to push through Turkey’s delayed ratification of the Paris Climate Accord, becoming the last of the Group of 20 major economies to do so.

Experts say climate change will cause more frequent and more intense wildfires and other natural disasters in Turkey unless measures are taken to tackle the problem.

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