Firefighters advance as Algerians pray for 71 dead

Firefighters finally made progress on Friday against the wildfires that raged across northern Algeria for days, but, as nationwide prayers were held for the dead, anger grew that the country was in so much trouble prepare.

Fire teams backed by army engineers and civilian volunteers still battled some 35 forest fires in a dozen northern provinces, but the deadly fires in the worst-hit province of Tizi Ouzou were largely turned off, emergency services said.

At least 71 people have died since Monday, according to the latest official report. Authorities said many of the fires were “of arson” origin.

Firefighters continued to fight fires in Béjaïa and Boumerdès, the other two provinces in the predominantly Berber region of Kabylia which stretches along the Mediterranean coast east of the capital Algiers.

In Tizi Ouzou province, where entire villages were destroyed – the terraced orchards that were their livelihood reduced to charred wood and ashes – there was disbelief that a seasonal phenomenon had turned into a disaster as well. deadly.

“In Larbaa Nath Irathen, the epicenter of the fires in Kabylia, the experts only managed to identify 19 of the 25 charred bodies they recovered,” the vice-president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights told AFP. human rights, Saïd Salhi. .

“Families are always on the lookout for their loved ones – it only adds pain after pain.”

‘Lose it all’

Larbaa Nath Irathen serves as the market center for some two dozen villages in the heart of the Kabylie mountains which were renowned for their landscapes. All were destroyed or ravaged by fires.

“It’s horrible, there is no other word,” a villager in his sixties, who was only called Djamel, told AFP by telephone.

“The first rule of government is to prepare. Except here, where each time we do nothing until after the disaster, when the damage is already done.”

Volunteers organize aid packages to be distributed in the burned villages of the Algerian region of Kabylia. By Ryad KRAMDI (AFP)

Another villager, Mohand, had traveled to Algiers to find shelter for his family before returning to help.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life,” he said. “There are families who have lost everything, absolutely everything.

“I can still smell the charred flesh. It’s unbearable. It just won’t go away.”

Many rural districts of Tizi Ouzou are deprived of electricity, gas or telephone lines.

A family of five was killed when a gas station in the village of Ain el-Hammam blew up, prompting other stations in the area to turn off their pumps and leaving motorists struggling to find fuel.

“No firebreaks, no hydrants”

Charred trees stretch as far as the eye can see in the Tizi Ouzou district, east of the Algerian capital. By Ryad KRAMDI (AFP)

Seasonal forest fires are nothing new in Algeria. But this time, strong winds fueled the rapid spread of the flames under very dry conditions created by a heat wave across North Africa and the wider Mediterranean.

Meteorologists expect the regional heatwave to continue until the end of the week, after temperatures in Algeria hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

The death toll from this year’s fires in Algeria – far higher than all other Mediterranean countries combined – has sparked growing criticism of successive governments’ failure to invest in fire prevention and control.

Bab Ezzouar University research director Abdelkrim Chelghoum said the country had failed to learn from a series of deadly disasters that struck the country in the early 2000s.

A law detailing the measures to be put in place was adopted in December 2004, but its provisions were never implemented, he said.

“The emergency services are struggling on the ground because there are no forest roads, no firebreaks, no standpipes,” Chelghoum said.

“Thanks to oil and gas, Algeria has enjoyed dollar deals for years. Unfortunately, officials … have done nothing.”

“If there had been the political will, we could have been better prepared.