Turkish Firefighters Defend Gallipoli Battlefield Site From Flames

Australian soldiers stand guard as a bugle is played during a dawn ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli at Anzac Cove in Turkey on Apr. 15, 2015. (Burak Kara/Getty Images)

Firefighters in western Turkey have been battling to prevent a wildfire from reaching memorials and graves at the site of the World War I battle of Gallipoli, on the western side of the Bosphorus south of Istanbul.

Dry, hot, and windy weather conditions have caused multiple wildfires to break out in western Turkey, as well as across the Aegean Sea in Greece earlier this week.

Images in local media showed gravestones covered in soot in a scorched field overlooking the Aegean Sea.

The flames reached Canterbury cemetery, where thousands of soldiers from New Zealand are interred.

Between April 1915 and January 1916, an Allied force tried and failed to break out of a beachhead at Gallipoli and break through the Turkish frontlines.

Around 250,000 Turkish troops were killed, along with around 115,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers, and 25,000 Frenchmen.

The losses were particularly significant among the so-called Anzac forces of Australia and New Zealand.

Place of Pilgrimage for Australians and New Zealanders

Anzac Cove has become a place of pilgrimage for many people from Australia and New Zealand, and every year the battle is commemorated at the site.

Officials said the Gallipoli fire—believed to have been started by a spark from an overhead electricity line—was brought under control by Friday lunchtime.

Elsewhere in western Turkey, emergency crews continued to battle the flames.

A fire threatened houses on the outskirts of Turkey’s third-largest city, Izmir, after a blaze broke out Thursday night.

Residents were evacuated as clouds of ash drifted across from an area of burnt woodland.

Irfan Onal, the mayor of the Bayrakli region which includes Izmir, posted on social media, “The fire in the Dogancay region unfortunately reached residential areas due to the wind. We want our citizens living in the region to evacuate their homes as soon as possible.”

In Manisa province, in the North West of Turkey, a fire has been burning for three days.

Turkey has mobilized dozens of aircraft and thousands of firefighters and volunteers to tackle the flames.

Forestry minister Ibrahim Yumakli warned high winds and high temperatures could exacerbate the problem over the weekend.

Yumakli said, “Our intervention capability and capacity is limited to a certain point.”

“It is not possible to emerge victorious from this struggle without the support of our citizens. Therefore, I request high-level sensitivity especially in these three days,” he added.

Earlier this week, a woman was killed as a fire gutted dozens of homes north of Athens before it was brought under control.

In June, a fire killed 11 people in South East Turkey.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.