The death of 10 workers in a forest fire in central Turkey on Wednesday has triggered a national outcry, with opposition leaders and rights groups accusing the government of gross negligence, poor planning and mismanagement.
The tragedy has reignited criticism of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with the country’s main opposition leader calling Turkey “a country of easy deaths” where preventable disasters have become routine.
Agriculture and Forestry Minister İbrahim Yumaklı announced the tragedy on Wednesday evening, saying five forestry workers and five rescue volunteers had died and that 14 others were injured after a fire broke out that morning in a wooded area near Büyükyayla in Eskişehir’s Seyitgazi district. Dry conditions and strong winds caused the flames to quickly spread.
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said public prosecutors in Eskişehir and the neighboring province of Afyonkarahisar had launched investigations into the incident.
‘Preventable’ deaths
The fatal fire has reignited debate over the government’s wildfire response strategy and its failure to invest in modern firefighting infrastructure.
Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel called the deaths a consequence of “irresponsibility and mismanagement” in a country of “easy deaths.” Speaking at a rally in İstanbul’s Bakırköy district, he condemned what he described as a lack of investment in emergency preparedness and worker safety.
“Here is the country of easy deaths. The world no longer sees such tragedies,” Özel said. “In Germany, France or the United Kingdom, no one has died in mining accidents for a century. It is not the ‘nature’ of any profession to die on the job. There is no justification for losing lives while fighting forest fires. The people will hold this poor governance accountable.”
Özel was referring to remarks made by President Erdoğan after Turkey’s worst mining disaster in 2014, when 301 workers were killed. Erdoğan then said such accidents were “the nature of the business.”
Rights groups: lack of planning, equipment cost lives
Human rights and environmental groups also condemned the government, saying the deaths could have been prevented with better planning and equipment.
“Despite frequent wildfires in our region, there is still no proper prevention policy,” the Human Rights Association (İHD) said in a statement posted on X. “There are not enough firefighting tools, aircraft or public warnings. Thousands of animals and hundreds of plant species were also lost in this fire. This is a deep tragedy.”
The Turkish Bar Association issued a statement mourning the victims and pledged to monitor the legal proceedings. “We share the public’s grief and call for an immediate and effective investigation,” it said.
The criticism comes amid lingering public anger over the government’s handling of massive wildfires that ravaged Turkey’s southern and western coasts in the summer of 2021. That wave of fires killed nine people, destroyed thousands of hectares of forestland and lasted more than two weeks before being brought under control.
At the time Erdoğan’s government was widely blamed for its slow response and lack of firefighting aircraft. Turkish media reported that the country had only one operational firefighting plane and had to lease two others from Russia at a cost of 1.3 million Turkish lira per day.
Unions, leftist parties accuse government of neglect
Labor unions and left-wing political parties said the Seyitgazi fire revealed long-standing government failures to protect both workers and forests.
“The failure to invest in modern firefighting technology and enforce worker safety standards has once again cost lives,” said the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DİSK). “Forest fires every summer are not fate, they are predictable disasters. Yet no real preparations are made. Workers are left facing extreme risks with little protection.”
Wildfires are common in Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean regions during the dry summer months. While some are caused by arson, most are linked to climate-related drought and heatwaves.
The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) called the deaths a “direct result of state institutions’ abandoning science and responsibility.” The Left Party (Sol Parti) said the government’s “corrupt one-man regime” had “paved the way for this tragedy.”
“Just like in previous fires, the Justice and Development Party [AKP] government is responsible for both the outbreak and the failure to contain it,” the Left Party said. “They sold off Turkey’s firefighting aircraft, shut down training programs and hired untrained seasonal workers for dangerous jobs. This is not an accident, it’s a crime.”
Erdoğan, long accused by critics of establishing a one-man rule by weakening parliament and suppressing dissent, faces growing allegations of fostering a corrupt system in which state institutions are unable to function effectively. Opponents say lucrative government contracts are routinely awarded to pro-government businesses, while public-sector hiring is driven more by political loyalty than merit.
Forestry expert: Training center closure was a critical mistake
Ahmet Hüsrev Özkara, head of the Turkish Foresters’ Association, said the country is now paying the price for closing a key firefighting training center in Buca, İzmir province, in 2018.
“Fighting forest fires requires experience and continuity,” he said. “That center was where people trained and shared knowledge. Without such preparation, disasters like this are inevitable.”
Özkara also criticized the government for retiring firefighting aircraft, relying on leased planes, and for failing to train enough ground crews. “The Seyitgazi disaster shows the real cost of ignoring training and preparation,” he said.
The bodies of Ercan Utmi, Hilmi Şahin, Eyip Dereli, Tolunay Kocaman, Enes Kızılyel, Muharrem Can, İlker Onarıcı, Tekin Enes Sarıyıldız, Bayram Eren Arslan and Alperen Özcan, all killed in the wildfire, were transported on Thursday to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Ankara for DNA testing to confirm their identities.