Bornova, Turkey Hosts Seminar on Forest Fire Causes and Prevention

The Bornova Municipality in İzmir organized a seminar titled “Forest Fires: Why Do We Burn? Why Can’t We Extinguish?” to discuss the escalating problem of forest fires in Turkey. The event was co‑led by the municipality’s Disaster Management and Risk Management Directorate and its R&D department, with Sinancan Öziçer serving as moderator.

Yasemen Bilgili, President of Strategy and Policy Development at the Ege Forest Foundation and a forest engineer, presented scientific data on the drivers of recent large‑scale fires, highlighting climate change, higher temperatures, low humidity, strong winds and human negligence such as careless smoking or open flames. He emphasized that effective fire control increasingly depends on preventive measures and public awareness. Öziçer stressed that forest fires are now a broader safety and life issue affecting the whole society, not just isolated disasters, and called for greater community responsibility in disaster management.