Algeria forest fires that killed 90 put out, 22 arrested

All forest fires in Algeria have been extinguished, the emergency services said on Wednesday, ending over a week of deadly blazes that left at least 90 people dead.

“No forest fire was recorded” on Wednesday morning, the emergency services said.

Fires broke out on Aug. 9, and at one point dozens were raging in multiple sites across northern Algeria, burning tens of thousands of hectares of forest.

The government has blamed arsonists and a blistering heatwave for the blazes, and authorities have arrested 22 suspects.

Police have also arrested 61 people over the lynching of a man falsely accused of arson, an incident that sparked outrage. The mob also set the victim on fire.

Authorities have appeared to point the finger for the incident and the blazes at the independence movement of the hard-hit mainly Berber region of Kabylie, which extends along the Mediterranean coast east of the capital Algiers.

The Movement for Self-determination of Kabylie (MAK), which Algiers classifies as a “terrorist organization,” has rejected the accusations.

Algeria is Africa’s biggest country by surface area, and although much of the interior is desert, the north has over 4 million hectares (10 million acres) of forest, which is hit every summer by fires.

Algeria’s army mobilized five helicopters and its emergency services’ three water-bombing helicopters to fight the flames, with firefighting aircraft also coming to help from Europe.

Algeria has since decided to buy four firefighting planes.

Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that man-made global warming will bring higher temperatures and more extreme weather events across the world.