Fires in Algeria under control - At least 38 dead

Fires that killed at least 38 people in northeastern Algeria this week have now been contained, a civil defense official told AFP on Friday.

"All the fires have been fully brought under control," said fire brigade colonel Farooq Akhoor of the civil defense department.

Since early August, nearly 150 fires have burned hundreds of hectares of forest in Africa's largest country.

The Justice Ministry launched an investigation after Interior Minister Kamel Beljoud said some of this year's fires were set maliciously, and authorities announced Thursday the arrests of four suspected arsonists.

Authorities have been accused of being unprepared, with few firefighting aircraft available, despite a record death toll in last year's fires and a windfall from natural gas exports as global energy prices soared.

Authorities said they deployed more than 1.700 firefighters on Wednesday and Thursday to tackle the widespread fires.

The dead included more than 10 children and a corresponding number of firefighters, according to multiple sources, including local journalists and the fire department.

Most were in the El Tarf region near Algeria's eastern border with Tunisia, an area that experienced a heat wave earlier this week, with the mercury reaching 48 degrees Celsius.

Among the victims were five members of the same family who perished in the flames around the mountainous area of ​​Suk Ahras. A witness told AFP that 12 people were burned in their bus as they tried to escape when a fire broke out in an animal park.

Last year's fires killed at least 90 people and burned areas of forest and crops in the north of the country.

Experts called for a major effort to strengthen Algeria's firefighting capacity.

Source: KYPE