The country’s forest coverage stands at 14.10 per, while the tree-covered area is 22.37 per cent, said Environment and Forests Climate Change Minister Md Shahab Uddin on Monday. A number of projects are now being implemented to raise the tree coverage to 24 per cent of the country by 2025 as per the 8th five-year plan, he told Parliament, replying to a scripted question from Awami League lawmaker Benjir Ahmed (Dhaka-20). The minister said the government has set a target to create 29,124-hectare mangrove and block garden as well as 1,574-km strip garden under the Forest Department in the current fiscal year of 2021-22. Also read:Govt plans to construct int’l airport nearby Dhaka: Mahbub Ali  In reply to another question from ruling party MP AKM Sarwar Jahan (Kushtia-1), Shahab Uddin said the social forestation programme continues throughout the country. The forest minister said a total of 102,229-hectare woodlot and block gardens were created in the lands of the Forest Department under the social forestation programme from 1980-81 fiscal to 2020-21 fiscal year. Besides, some 76,752-km strip gardens were developed in other lands including fellow lands, roads, highways, railways and water dams throughout the country in the same time as part of the social afforestation programme, he said. Responding to a scripted question from AL MP Didarul Alam (Chattogram-4), the minister said the number of tigers is 114 in Sundarbans as per the latest census conducted in 2018. Also read: JS passes ‘Mongla Port Authority Bill’ with harsher punishment for polluting environment But 106 tigers were found in 2015 when the camera trapping method was applied for the first time in the Sundarbans tiger census, he said. Besides, some 100,000-150,000 deer, 165-200 crocodiles and 40,000-50,000 monkeys are there in the world's largest mangrove forest Sundarbans, he added.

Speakers at a consultation on the formulation of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) on Sunday stressed the conservation of the hill forests in Bandarban to save the region from climate disaster. The consultation was jointly organised by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Economic Relations Division (ERD) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with support from the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The speakers expressed concerns over the native species destroying plantation and horticulture practices.  Although horticulture is bringing economic benefit to the farmers, rampant use of pesticides has emerged as a major threat to biodiversity, they said. Considering different vulnerability factors including extreme level water scarcity, deforestation, worsening biodiversity, flash flood Bandarban district was selected to conduct the consultation. Bandarban has been ranked second among the climate-vulnerable 10 hotspots in Bangladesh. Read: Massive mangrove forestry planned to protect wildlife and expand forest coverage The country on the other hand is ranked seventh among the climate-vulnerable countries globally (South Asian hotspots, World Bank, 2018). Additional Secretary of the MoEFCC and National Project Director of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP)  Formulation Project Md Mizanul Haque Chowdhury informed the participants about Bangladesh’s priorities outlined in SDG, Delta Plan 2100, Perspective plan, five-year plan and its ambition to graduate from a Least developed country to a middle-income country. “We are committed to implementing the Glasgow Climate Pact signed during the COP26. We will work in close coordination with all the public and private entities, development partners and the people to keep the temperature well below 1.5 degrees Celsius and protect the biodiversity” He explained that the objective of the consultation was to understand the local vulnerability issues and get feedback from the participants on these for incorporation in the NAP. Mizanul Haque was present as the chief guest while Amal Krishna Mandal, Join Secretary, Wing Chief, Economic Relations Division (ERD) was present as the special guest. Bandarban Deputy Commissioner Yasmin Parvin Tibriji, chaired the consultation. More than 80 representatives from district administration, local government representatives, civil society representatives, sectoral experts, professionals, journalists and academia attended the event and provided their valuable comments and feedback to enrich the plan with locally specific climate adversities and adaptation needs. Participants from different parts of the Rangamati and Khagrachari districts joined over zoom. While delivering the keynote presentation, Professor Dr Ainun Nishat, Team Leader of the NAP Formulation Consortium said, “We will incorporate the locally-led adaptation practices in the NAP”. He drew examples from the changing patterns of the climate and added that Chattogram Hill Tracts is heavy rainfall region and it is a major contributing factor to flash floods causing havoc. “We have to adopt measures on how to tackle such challenges”, he said. For successful implementation of the NAP, he underlined incorporation of the NAP in the local, national and sub-national development planning and transformative capacity building. Khan Jamal Lusai, botanist and former academic emphasised on maintaining the navigability of the rivers and regular flow of water in the hill Charas would transform the life and livelihood of the hill people. “As there is no cultivable plain land, the hill people have no other choice but to do Jhum cultivation and produce cotton, vegetables and fruits”. He also said that Jhum cultivation is not as productive as it was in the past. “We need to look beyond Jhum cultivation and introduce economic activities that support the livelihood of the hill people,” he said. Ripon Chakma, executive director of Trinomul Unnayan Sangstha said that Use of herbicide and pesticide in mango cultivation is destroying the hill ecosystem. Large scale horticulture destroying the native species is likely to harm the ecosystem and biodiversity in the entire hill tracts regions. Rafiqul Islam, deputy director, Department of Agricultural Extension said, “We can consider conducting a study on season-specific availability of water in different regions. Based on the findings, we can erect permanent dam and reservoirs on an experimental basis and harvest rainwater”. Buddhojoti Chakma, Correspondent of Prothom Alo said that destroying the biodiversity will only result in destroying the natural sources of water. Monirul Islam Monu of Kalerkantho said that Introduction of exotic horticulture without any study can be deadly for the biodiversity of the hill region. “Furthermore, we must stop burning our forests in the illegal brick fields and stone excavation.” Read:Environmental organizations protest dysfunction of rules to protect forest-wild animals A K M Azad Rahman, Programme Officer-Climate Change, UNDP said, “Bandarban and the entire CHT needs special adaptation measures” He advocated for Village Common Forest (VCF), a traditional practice to conserve community land for ecosystem services among other adaptation measures. Amal Krishna Mandal said, “We are confident that we will have a country driven NAP that will document locally led adaptation efforts”. Yasmin Parvin  thanked the participants and said that The NAP should put utmost priority on solving the water crisis and land slide in the Bandarban as well as the entire CHT region. “We will continue such dialogues with all the relevant public agencies and stakeholders to address our local problem in a coordinated way.” The country on the other hand is ranked seventh among the climate-vulnerable countries globally (South Asian hotspots, World Bank, 2018). 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday directed the authorities concerned to conduct digital surveys immediately to know the latest situation of all the forests across the country so that effective steps can be taken to protect the country’s forests. She gave the directive while presiding over the virtual Cabinet meeting from her official residence Ganobhaban. Other cabinet members were connected from the Bangladesh Secretariat. “The Prime Minister issued an instruction for conducting digital surveys immediately on all the forests, maintaining coordination among the Land Ministry and the Environment and Forest Ministry as the deputy commissioners concerned,” said Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam while briefing reporters after the meeting. She stressed the need for taking steps on completion of the digital surveys for permanent settlement of the people who are now living inside forests. The Prime Minister also directed the authorities concerned to go for reforestation and engage the local people in it, sharing the ownership of trees with them. Read: UN chief in plea for saving forests

Crews were digging in and burning out fire lines amid another round of high winds Saturday contributed to the fury to a Northern California wildfire. “We have a firefight ahead of us and the wind today is going to make it very challenging,” said Keith Wade, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. The Caldor Fire in the northern Sierra Nevada already destroyed dozens of homes, and authorities on Friday closed down a 46-mile (74-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 50, the main route between the state capital of Sacramento and Lake Tahoe on the Nevada state line. The highway was closed after debris from the blaze fell onto the roadway and because of red flag warnings for 20- to 30-mph (32- to 48-kph) winds that by Saturday evening “combined with continued extremely dry fuels will result in critical fire weather conditions in the vicinity of the Caldor Fire,” the National Weather Service said. Read: California wildfires destroy homes; winds hamper containment The winds could gust to 40 mph (65 kph) Saturday. The road is a key checkpoint as crews struggle against the fire, which erupted earlier this week and grew to 10 times its size in a few days, fueled by winds. “We’re going to invest everything we can into holding the fire south” of the road, said Eric Schwab, an operations section chief with Cal Fire. Firefighters made progress on the fire’s western side and burned vegetation to starve it of fuel and prevent the flames from heading into the evacuated community of Pollock Pines. On the northeast side, crews were protecting cabins in the dense forest area, fire officials said. The Caldor Fire had now devoured about 130 square miles (310 square kilometers) as of Saturday and more than 1,500 firefighters were battling it amid heavy timber and rugged terrain. The blaze was one of about a dozen large California wildfires that have scorched Northern California, incinerating at least 700 homes alone in and around the Sierra Nevada communities of Greenville and Grizzly Flats. The fires, mainly in the northern part of the state, have burned nearly 1.5 million acres, or roughly 2,300 square miles (6,000 square kilometers) and have sent smoke as far as the East Coast. They were burning in grass, brush and forest that is exceptionally dry from two years of drought likely exacerbated by climate change. Read: Fueled by winds, largest wildfire moves near California city Thousands of homes remained under threat in communities tucked away in scenic forests and tens of thousands of people remain under evacuation orders. Nine national forests in the region have been closed because of the fire threat. To the northwest of the Caldor Fire, the massive Dixie Fire kept expanding and new evacuations were ordered, including the tiny hamlet of Taylorsville. In five weeks, the fire about 175 miles (282 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco has become the second-largest in state history and blackened an area twice the size of Los Angeles. Weather forecasts call for a storm system that will bring winds but little rain through Northern California into early next week. With it will come increased risks of fires. Dozens have erupted in recent days but were quickly stamped out. An exception was the Cache Fire, a small but fast-moving grass blaze that ravaged at least 56 homes and virtually annihilated a mobile home park. Some of those forced to flee the flames had to leave their pets behind. Emily Crum, an animal control officer with North Bay Animal Services, got a surprise as she searched for abandoned pets in the Clearlake area. She spotted a black dog in a charred lot. “I saw her laying there. I thought she was dead,” Crum said. “Then she started wagging her tail.” Despite being chained to a boat trailer, the mutt named Sammy had not been injured, Crum said. Read: Thunderstorms, heat fuel wildfires burning across West Cats, goats and chickens also were rescued. California is one of a dozen mostly Western states where 99 large, active fires were burning as of Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Fires have intensified across the entire West, creating a nearly year-round season that has taxed firefighters. Fire patterns used to migrate in seasons from the Southwest to the Rockies, to the Pacific Northwest and then California, allowing fire crews to move from one place to the next, said Anthony Scardina, deputy regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service. “But the problem is all of those seasons are starting to overlap,” Scardina said.

Dry and windy weather dogged firefighters’ efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken Northern California on Thursday. An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings, forced thousands of people to flee communities and filled skies with smoke. The U.S. Forest Service announced that it will close nine national forests in the region beginning on Aug. 22 and running through Sept. 6 because of extreme fire conditions and because firefighting resources have been stretched thin by the sheer number of blazes burning around the country. The monstrous Dixie Fire, burning since July 13 in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, ballooned further to about 1,060 square miles (2,745 square kilometers) and was only 35% contained, authorities said. Read:Fueled by winds, largest wildfire moves near California city The fire, which gutted the town of Greenville two weeks ago, has destroyed more than 1,200 buildings including 649 homes, according to ongoing damage assessments. About 100 miles (161 kilometers) to the south, there was still no official count of the number of homes destroyed when winds whipped the Caldor Fire into an inferno that roared through the Sierra town of Grizzly Flats this week. Those who viewed the aftermath saw few homes still standing in the community of 1,200 residents. Fire managers were rushing resources to the fire growing on steep slopes in a forested region southwest of Lake Tahoe. More than 650 firefighters and 13 helicopters were assigned to the blaze, and air tankers from throughout the state were flying fire suppression missions there as conditions allowed, authorities said. “The hope is with the additional resources and personnel on scene, we can really start to build that box around this fire and start the containment,” said Keith Wade of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Evacuees from the Caldor Fire found refuge in places like the Green Valley Community Church in Placerville, west of the fire, where they set up tents and trailers in a parking lot. Adrian Childress, 7, painted pictures to pass the time and a special tent was set up for people who wished to pray. Read:Thunderstorms, heat fuel wildfires burning across West In Omo Ranch, close to where the fire started, a bulldozer ripped out trees to build a fire line and stop the blaze from spreading south. While nearly the entire town evacuated, Thurman Conroy and his wife, Michele, stayed behind to protect their house and their business, Conroy General Store. But they were prepared to flee if the fire gets too close. “The fire wants us bad because it’s made every attempt it can to get out of that canyon and up this way,” Thurman said. “So they keep beating it down. And it’s just ... it’s resilient, it’s stubborn, it won’t go away. That’s all we can do.” California’s fires were among 104 large, active blazes Thursday in 12 states, mostly in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Those fires combined have scorched nearly 4,000 square miles (10,360 square kilometers). Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists. Read:Climate-fueled wildfires take toll on tropical Pacific isles Drought, heat, low humidity and winds have left California vegetation ready to burn this summer. More than two-dozen new fires erupted Wednesday alone. All but two were quickly contained. One small but destructive blaze burned through a mobile home park and reduced an estimated 50 homes to ashes in Lake County, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of San Francisco. Elsewhere in the northwestern region of the state, two big fires continued to burn in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Meanwhile, Pacific Gas & Electric said Thursday that it had restored power to nearly 50,000 Northern California customers whose power was shut off Tuesday to prevent new fires from being ignited if electrical lines were damaged during high winds. The utility said it found at least 10 instances of weather-related damage, including four that potentially could have caused fires if the utility hadn’t de-energized power lines.

Record-setting blazes raging across Northern California are wiping out forests central to plans to reduce carbon emissions and testing projects designed to protect communities, the state’s top fire official said Wednesday, hours before a fast-moving new blaze erupted. Fires that are “exceedingly resistant to control” in drought-sapped vegetation are on pace to exceed the amount of land burned last year — the most in modern history — and having broader effects, said Thom Porter, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Hours after Porter spoke, a grass fire spurred by winds up to 30 mph (48 kilometers per hour) swiftly burned dozens of homes, forced the evacuation of schools and threatened the city of Clearlake about 80 miles north of San Francisco. Rows of homes were destroyed on at least two blocks and television footage showed crews dousing burning homes with water. Children were rushed out of an elementary school as a field across the street burned. Read: Fueled by winds, largest wildfire moves near California city Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin issued a warning of “immediate threat to life and property.” “This isn’t the fire to mess around with,” he told KGO-TV. Fires burning mostly in the northern part of the state threatened thousands of homes and led to extended evacuation orders and warnings, as well as power outages to prevent utility equipment from sparking fires amid strong winds. The largest current fire in the West, known as the Dixie Fire, is the first to have burned from east to west across the spine of California, where the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains meet, the state’s fire chief said. It was also one of several massive fires that have destroyed areas of the timber belt that serve as a centerpiece of the state’s climate reduction plan because trees can store carbon dioxide. “We are seeing generational destruction of forests because of what these fires are doing,” Porter said. “This is going to take a long time to come back from.” Although the Dixie Fire is only a third contained and remains a threat, dozens of fire engines and crews were transferred Wednesday to fight the Caldor Fire, which exploded in size southwest of Lake Tahoe and ravaged Grizzly Flats, a community of about 1,200. It covered 84 square miles (217 square kilometers). Dozens of homes burned, according to officials, but tallies were incomplete. Those who viewed the aftermath saw few homes standing. Lone chimneys rose from the ashes, little more than rows of chairs remained of a church and the burned out husks of cars littered the landscape. Chris Sheean said the dream home he bought six weeks ago near the elementary school went up in smoke. He felt lucky he and his wife, cats and dog got out safely hours before the flames arrived. “It’s devastation. You know, there’s really no way to explain the feeling, the loss,” Sheean said. “Maybe next to losing a child, a baby, maybe. … Everything that we owned, everything that we’ve built is gone.” Read:Wildfires in Algeria leave 42 dead, including 25 soldiers All 7,000 residents in nearby Pollock Pines were ordered to evacuate Tuesday. A large fire menaced the town in 2014. Time lapse video from a U.S. Forest Service webcam captured the fire’s extreme behavior as it grew beneath a massive gray cloud. A ceiling of dark smoke spread out from the main plume that began to glow and was then illuminated by flames shooting hundreds of feet in the sky. John Battles, a professor of forest ecology at the University of California, Berkeley, said the fires are behaving in ways not seen in the past as flames churn through trees and brush desiccated by a megadrought in the West and exacerbated by climate change. “These are reburning areas that have burned what we thought were big fires 10 years ago,” Battles said. “They’re reburning that landscape.” The wildfires, in large part, have been fueled by high temperatures, strong winds and dry weather. Climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists. Battles said the fires have created a vicious cycle. Burning increases carbon emissions while also destroying trees and other ground cover that can absorb the greenhouse gas. Dead trees will continue to release carbon they once stored. The fire is burning along the U.S. Route 50 corridor, one of two highways between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. The highway through the canyon along the South Fork of the American River has been the focus of a decades-long effort to protect homes by preventing the spread of fires through a combination of fuel breaks, prescribed burns and logging. “All of that is being tested as we speak,” Porter said. “When fire is jumping outside of its perimeter, sometimes miles ... those fuel projects won’t stop a fire. Sometimes they’re just used to slow it enough to get people out of the way.” In the Sierra-Cascades region about 100 miles (161 kilometers) to the north, the month-old Dixie Fire expanded by thousands of acres to 993 square miles (2,572 square kilometers) — two weeks after the blaze gutted the Gold Rush-era town of Greenville. About 16,000 homes and buildings were threatened by the Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history. Read: Wildfires rampage in Greek forests, cut large island in half “It’s a pretty good size monster,” Mark Brunton, a firefighting operations section chief, said in a briefing. “It’s going to be a work in progress — eating the elephant one bite at a time kind of thing.” The Caldor and Dixie fires are among a dozen large wildfires in the northern half of California. More than 40,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers had no power, though the utility began restoring electricity to customers as forecasts for low humidity and gusts were expected to improve Thursday. Most of the fires this year have hit the northern part of the state, largely sparing Southern California, which experienced rare drizzle and light rain Wednesday. Fire conditions in the region are expected to get worse in the fall.

California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history kept pushing through forestlands on Tuesday as fire crews tried to protect rural communities from flames that have destroyed hundreds of homes. Clear skies over parts of the month-old Dixie Fire have allowed aircraft to rejoin nearly 6,000 firefighters in the attack this week. “Whether or not we can fly depends very much on where the smoke is. There’s still some areas where it’s just too smoky,” fire spokesman Edwin Zuniga said. Heavy smoke reduced visibility on the fire’s west end while the east end saw renewed action as afternoon winds took hold, fire officials said. Read: Wildfires in Algeria leave 42 dead, including 25 soldiers Burning through bone-dry trees, brush and grass, the fire by Tuesday had destroyed more than 1,000 buildings, including nearly 550 homes. Much of the small community of Greenville was incinerated during an explosive run of flames last week. But the reports are “definitely subject to change” because assessment teams still can’t get into many areas to count what burned, Zuniga said. The Dixie Fire, named for the road where it started, also threatened 14,000 buildings in more than a dozen small mountain and rural communities in the northern Sierra Nevada. Crews have cut thousands of acres of new fire lines aimed at preventing the fire from spreading. Officials believe the fire lines created on the blaze’s southern side will hold the fire at bay there, but the fire’s future is unknown, authorities said. “We don’t know where this fire is going to end and where it’s going to land. It continues to challenge us,” said Chris Carlton, supervisor for Plumas National Forest. Temperatures are expected to rise and the humidity is expected to fall over the next few days, with triple-digit high temperatures possible later in the week along with a return of strong afternoon winds, fire meteorologist Rich Thompson warned Monday evening. Read: Wildfires rampage in Greek forests, cut large island in half The fire that broke out July 14 grew slightly on Tuesday to an area of 766 square miles (1,984 square kilometers) but containment increased to 27%, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Dixie Fire is about half the size of the August Complex, a series of lightning-caused 2020 fires across seven counties that were fought together and that state officials consider California’s largest wildfire overall. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday declared a state of emergency for northern Shasta, Trinity and Tehama counties. The declaration frees up state resources to help fight fires in those counties and give assistance to residents affected by he blazes. California’s raging wildfires are among some 100 large blazes burning across 15 states, mostly in the West, where historic drought conditions have left lands parched and ripe for ignition. The Dixie Fire is the largest single fire in California history and the largest currently burning in the U.S. Nearly a quarter of all firefighters assigned to Western fires are fighting California blazes, said Rocky Oplinger, an incident commander. Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists have said climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. The fires across the West come as parts of Europe are also fighting large blazes spurred by tinder-dry conditions. Read: Thousands flee homes outside Athens as heat fuels wildfires In southeastern Montana, the small towns of Ashland and Lame Deer were ordered evacuated Tuesday as a wildfire threatened hundreds of homes outside the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Rosebud County Sheriff Allen Fulton said flames were being driven by strong, erratic winds. “We’re actually pretty worried about it,” Fulton said. “It’s jumping highways, it’s jumping streams. A paved road is about a good a fire line as we could ask for, and it’s going over that in spots.” Northwest of the Dixie Fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, hundreds of homes remained threatened by two fires. However, nearly 50% of the McFarland Fire was contained. New evacuation orders were issued Monday for residents near the Monument Fire, which was only about 3% contained. South of the Dixie Fire, firefighters prevented further growth of the River Fire, which broke out last Wednesday near the community of Colfax and destroyed 68 homes. It was nearly 80% contained.

At least 25 soldiers died saving residents from wildfires ravaging mountain forests and villages east of Algeria’s capital, the president announced Tuesday night as the civilian toll rose to at least 17. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers were “martyrs” who saved 100 people from the fires in two areas of Kabyle, the region that is home to the North African nation’s Berber population. Eleven other soldiers were burned fighting the fires, four of them seriously, the Defense Ministry said. Read: Wildfires rampage in Greek forests, cut large island in half Prime Minister Aïmene Benabderrahmane later said on state TV that 17 civilians had lost their lives, raising the count of citizens from seven previously and bringing the total death toll to 42. He provided no details. The mountainous Kabyle region, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Algeria’s capital of Algiers, is dotted with difficult-to-access villages and with temperatures rising has had limited water. Some villagers were fleeing, while others tried to hold back the flames themselves, using buckets, branches and rudimentary tools. The region has no water-dumping planes. The deaths and injuries Tuesday occurred mainly around Kabyle’s capital of Tizi-Ouzou, which is flanked by mountains, and also in Bejaia, which borders the Mediterranean Sea, the president said. The prime minister told state television that initial reports from security services showed the fires in Kabyle were “highly synchronized,” adding that “leads one to believe these were criminal acts.” Earlier, Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud traveled to Kabyle to assess the situation and also blamed the fires there on arson. “Thirty fires at the same time in the same region can’t be by chance,” Beldjoud said on national television, although no arrests were announced. There were no immediate details to explain the high death toll among the military. A photo pictured on the site of the Liberte daily showed a soldier with a shovel dousing sputtering flames with dirt, his automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. Read: Thousands flee homes outside Athens as heat fuels wildfires Dozens of blazes sprang up Monday in Kabyle and elsewhere, and Algerian authorities sent in the army to help citizens battle blazes and evacuate. Multiple fires were burning through forests and devouring olive trees, cattle and chickens that provide the livelihoods of families in the Kabyle region. The Civil Protection authority counted 41 blazes in 18 wilayas, or regions, as of Monday night, with 21 of them burning around Tizi Ouzou. A 92-year-old woman living in the Kabyle mountain village of Ait Saada said the scene Monday night looked like “the end of the world.” “We were afraid,” Fatima Aoudia told The Associated Press. “The entire hill was transformed into a giant blaze.” Aoudia compared the scene to bombings by French troops during Algeria’s brutal independence war, which ended in 1962. “These burned down forests. It’s a part of me that is gone,” Aoudia said. “It’s a drama for humanity, for nature. It’s a disaster.” Read: Western wildfires calm down in cool weather, but losses grow An opposition party with roots in the Kabyle region, the RCD, denounced authorities’ slow response to the rash of blazes as citizens organized local drives to collect bottled water and other supplies. Calls for help, including from Algerians living abroad, went out on social media, one in English trending on Twitter with the hashtag #PrayforAlgeria. Photos and videos posted showed plumes of dark smoke and orange skies rising above hillside villages or soldiers in army fatigues without protective clothing. Climate scientists say there is little doubt climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms. A worsening drought and heat — both linked to climate change — are driving wildfires in the U.S. West and Russia’s northern region of Siberia. Extreme heat is also fueling the massive fires in Greece and Turkey.

Three large wildfires churned across Greece on Saturday, with one threatening whole towns and cutting a line across Evia, the country’s second-largest island, isolating its northern part. Others engulfed forested mountainsides and skirted ancient sites, leaving behind a trail of destruction that one official described as “a biblical catastrophe.” A flotilla of 10 ships — two Coast Guard patrols, two ferries, two passenger ships and four fishing boats — waited at the seaside resort of Pefki, near the northern tip of Evia, ready to evacuate more residents and tourists if needed, a Coast Guard spokeswoman told The Associated Press, on customary condition of anonymity. Firefighters were fighting through the night to save Istiaia, a town of 7,000 in northern Evia, as well as several villages, using bulldozers to open up clear paths in the thick forest. Read: Thousands flee homes outside Athens as heat fuels wildfires The fire on Evia forced the hasty Friday night evacuation of about 1,400 people from a seaside village and island beaches by a motley assortment of boats after the approaching flames cut off other means of escape. The other dangerous fires were one in Greece’s southern Peloponnese peninsula, near Ancient Olympia and one in Fokida, in the Central Greece Region, north of Athens. The fire in Ancient Olympia moved east, away from the ancient site, threatening villages in a sudden flare-up Saturday afternoon. North of Athens, the fire on Mount Parnitha, a national park with substantial forests, was still burning with occasional flare-ups, but a Fire Service spokesman told the AP late Saturday that containment efforts were “going well.” Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias told reporters Saturday night that firefighters hoped to contain the fire Sunday. Smoke from that fire was still spreading across the Athens basin. Earlier, the blaze had sent choking smoke across the Greek capital, where authorities set up a hotline for residents with breathing problems. One volunteer firefighter died Friday and at least 20 people have been treated in hospitals over the last week during Greece’s most intense heat wave in three decades. Temperatures soared up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday visited the fire department’s headquarters in Athens and expressed his “deep sadness” for the firefighter’s death. He later visited the airport, west of Athens, from which firefighting planes take off and thanked the pilots, Greek as well as French, who arrived to support the firefighting effort. Securing aid for everyone affected by the wildfires will be “my first political priority,” he said, promising that all burnt areas would be reforested. “When this nightmarish summer has passed, we will turn all our attention to repairing the damage as fast as possible, and in restoring our natural environment again,” Mitsotakis said. A local official in the Mani area of southern Peloponnese, south of Sparta, estimated the wildfire there had destroyed around 70% of her area. Read:In heat emergency, southern Europe scrambles for resources “It’s a biblical catastrophe. We’re talking about three-quarters of the municipality,” East Mani Deputy Mayor Eleni Drakoulakou told state broadcaster ERT, pleading for more water-dropping aircraft. Other officials and residents in southern Greece phoned in to TV programs, appealing live on air for more firefighting help. Greece requested help through the European Union’s emergency support system. Firefighters and aircraft were sent from France, Spain, Ukraine, Cyprus, Croatia, Sweden, Israel, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and the United States. On Saturday alone, Germany’s Disaster Assistance agency tweeted that 52 firefighters and 17 vehicles from Bonn and 164 firemen and 27 vehicles from Hessen were heading to Athens to help. Egypt said it was sending two helicopters, while 36 Czech firefighters with 15 vehicles left for Greece. The causes of the fires are under investigation. Three people were arrested Friday — in the greater Athens area, central and southern Greece — on suspicion of starting blazes, in two cases intentionally. Another person, a 47-year-old Greek, was arrested Saturday afternoon in the Athens suburb of Petroupoli for lighting two fires in a grove and setting four dumpsters on fire, police said. Greek and European officials also have blamed climate change for the large number of fires burning through southern Europe, from southern Italy to the Balkans, Greece and Turkey. Fires described as the worst in decades have swept through stretches of Turkey’s southern coast for the past 10 days, killing eight people. The top Turkish forestry official said 217 fires had been brought under control since July 28 in over half of the country’s provinces, but firefighters still worked Saturday to tame six fires in two provinces. In Turkey’s seaside province of Mugla, a popular region for tourists, some fires appeared to be under control Saturday but the forestry minister said blazes were still burning in the Milas area. Environmental groups urged authorities to protect the forests of Sandras Mountain from nearby fires. Further north, at least six neighborhoods were evacuated due to a wildfire in western Aydin province, where shifting winds were making containment efforts difficult, Turkish media reported. Read: Californians endure intense weekend of wildfire fears Municipal officials in Antalya, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, said a wildfire was still burning around the Eynif plain, where wild horses live. Massive fires also have been burning across Siberia in northern Russia for weeks, forcing the evacuation Saturday of a dozen villages. In all, wildfires have burned nearly 15 million acres this year in Russia. In the U.S., hot, bone-dry, gusty weather has also fueled devastating wildfires in California.

The monstrous wildfire burning in Oregon has grown to a third the size of Rhode Island and spreads miles each day, but evacuations and property losses have been minimal compared with much smaller blazes in densely populated areas of California. The fire’s jaw-dropping size contrasted with its relatively small impact on people underscores the vastness of the American West and offers a reminder that Oregon, which is larger than Britain, is still a largely rural state, despite being known mostly for its largest city, Portland. The 476-square-mile (1,210-square-kilometer) Bootleg Fire is burning 300 miles (483 kilometers) southeast of Portland in and around the Fremont-Winema National Forest, a vast expanse of old-growth forest, lakes and wildlife refuges. If the fire were in densely populated parts of California, “it would have destroyed thousands of homes by now,” said James Johnston, a researcher with Oregon State University’s College of Forestry who studies historical wildfires. “But it is burning in one of the more remote areas of the lower 48 states. It’s not the Bay Area out there.” Read:Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and another 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have gone up in flames. Thick smoke chokes the area where residents and wildlife alike have already been dealing with months of drought and extreme heat. No one has died. Pushed by strong winds from the southwest, the fire is spreading rapidly to the north and east, advancing toward an area that’s increasingly remote. Evacuation orders on the fire’s southern edge, closer to more populous areas like Klamath Falls and Bly, have been lifted or relaxed as crews gain control. Now it’s small, unincorporated communities like Paisley and Long Creek — both with fewer than 250 people — and scattered homesteads that are in the crosshairs. “The Bootleg Fire is threatening ranch houses that are in pretty far-flung areas,” Johnston said. “There are no suburbs in that area.” But as big as the Bootleg Fire is, it’s not the biggest Oregon has seen. The fire’s current size puts it fourth on the list of the state’s largest blazes in modern times, including rangeland fires, and second on the list of infernos specifically burning in forest. These megafires usually burn until the late fall or even early winter, when rain finally puts them out. The largest forest fire in modern history was the Biscuit Fire, which torched nearly 780 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) in 2002 in the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon and northern California. The largest fire of any type was the Long Draw Fire in 2012, which incinerated 872 square miles (2,260 square kilometers) of mostly sagebrush and rangeland in the endless expanses of southeastern Oregon, where almost no one lives. By the time the Bootleg Fire is extinguished months from now, it will likely be as big or bigger than those fires, but research shows that Oregon once experienced megafires much larger than these fairly often, Johnston said. “I think it’s important for us to take the long view of wildfire. In the context of the last couple hundreds years, the Bootleg Fire is not large,” he said. “One of the things my lab group does is reconstruct historical fires, and fires that were burning in that area in the 1600s and 1700s were just as big as the Bootleg Fire or bigger.” Read:Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands That’s little reassurance for fire crews battling the current blaze, which is 25% contained. On Monday, flames forced the evacuation of a wildlife research station as firefighters had to retreat from the flames for the ninth consecutive day due to erratic and dangerous fire behavior. Sycan Marsh hosts thousands of migrating and nesting birds and is a key research station on wetland restoration in the upper reaches of the Klamath Basin. Fire pushed by winds and fueled by bone-dry conditions jumped fire-retardant containment lines and pushed up to 4 miles into new territory, authorities said. Fire crews were also rushing to corral multiple “slop fires” — patches of flames that escaped fire lines meant to contain the blaze — before they grew in size. One of those smaller fires was already nearly 4 square miles (10 square kilometers) in size. Thunderstorms with dry lightning were possible Monday as well, heightening the dangers. “We are running firefighting operations through the day and all through the night,” said Joe Hessel, incident commander. “This fire is a real challenge, and we are looking at sustained battle for the foreseeable future.” The Bootleg Fire was one of many fires burning in a dozen states, most of them in the U.S. West. Sixteen large uncontained fires burned in Oregon and Washington state alone on Monday, affecting a total of 767 square miles (1,986 square kilometers), the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center said. Extremely dry conditions and heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. At the other end of Oregon, a fire in the northeast mountains grew to nearly 26 square miles (49 square kilometers). The Elbow Creek Fire that started Thursday has prompted evacuations in several small, rural communities around the Grande Ronde River about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Walla Walla, Washington. It was 10% contained. Read: Wildfires threaten homes, land across 10 Western states Natural features of the area act like a funnel for wind, feeding the flames and making them unpredictable, officials said. A complex of fires where the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho meet also grew, reaching 167 square miles (433 square kilometers). The Snake River Complex was 44% contained. The complex was made up of three fires started by lightning on July 7. Flames were chewing through a mix of grass and timber in an extremely remote area of steep terrain about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Lewiston, Idaho. And in Northern California, authorities expanded evacuations on the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County in the Sierra Nevada to include the mountain town of Mesa Vista. That fire, which exploded over the weekend and forced the cancellation of an extreme bike ride, was 36 square miles (93 square kilometers) with no containment. Thunderstorms expected to roll through Monday night could bring winds to fan the flames and lightning that could spark new ones, the National Weather Service said.