Fires Rage in Turkey as Anger Grows over Grounded Firefighting Aircraft

ISTANBUL - Turkey is seeing one of its worst wildfires in decades, with at least nine people killed as of Wednesday. The Turkish government is coming under growing criticism because its fleet of firefighting planes is out of action.

Tourists and locals use buckets to fill a tank on a pickup truck with seawater to douse a nearby advancing fire. Lemis Seper, a volunteer, said it is a desperate struggle, especially in parts that cannot be reached by land.  Seper said, the air reinforcements are too weak. She says there are fires in too many places in Turkey at the moment, and she said crews cannot respond to them. When the more than hundred fires broke out last week over an area stretching more than a thousand kilometers, Turkey only had three rented Russian firefighting aircraft. That is compared to neighboring Greece, which has more than 20 aircraft to fight the fires that are also raging on its territory.