Images showed flames and smoke billowing into the sky close to high-rise apartment buildings in Antalya, where local and foreign visitors flock during the summer months. Homes were evacuated in the city centre and the outlying district of Aksu as the fire advanced, privately owned news agency DHA reported. Firefighters struggled to extinguish the blazes before strong winds could spread the fire, which closed a major coastal road. Further along the coast, homes in the city of Manavgat were also threatened.

Local residents with hoses and buckets rushed to assist firefighters as water-dropping helicopters and planes also battled the flames. Police water cannons and municipal water trucks were also enlisted in the firefighting efforts. Antalya Governor Hulusi Sahin said that the fires were under control apart from one in Aksu, which was "showing a tendency to grow," and another in Gazipasa, east of Manavgat. "The fires were truly disturbing and dangerous, because they occurred in city centres, among houses," he said. "We evacuated some of our homes ... There are no deaths or injuries." Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, meanwhile, said Friday that Izmir and Bilecik provinces had been declared "disaster areas affecting public life," one step below the most serious level of emergency. Between June 27 and Thursday, residents from 120 neighbourhoods nationwide were evacuated, Yerlikaya added, and more than 12,000 workers under the ministry's authority, such as police and rescue staff, had fought the fires. (Jamaica Gleaner)