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ISTANBUL-Fire fighters worked through the night to bring under control a forest fire which engulfed 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) in the Turkish tourism province of Antalya, the state Anatolian news agency said on Saturday. Dozens of aircraft supported the fight against the blaze, described by one official as the worst the region had ever faced. It threatened residential areas and historical sites, including the ancient Greek amphitheatre in Aspendos, 37 km (23 miles) from the Mediterranean resort of Side."I have dealt my whole life with fires but I have never seen a sight like this ... I can safely say that we are experiencing a catastrophe," said Mustafa Kurtulmus, deputy general manager of Turkey's forestry directorate."Our only consolation is that there has been no loss of life. The weather conditions are very poor," he said.A forestry directorate spokesman said the fire-fighting work continued into the early hours and that the blaze was advancing in several districts of Serik and Manavgat along the coast.Six villages have been evacuated and four of them were seriously damaged by the fires, spurred on by heavy winds, which locals tried to fight near their homes. "My house was burned down but I saved my children and my husband who is sick with Parkinson's disease," Anatolian quoted a tearful woman called Ayse Yilmaz as saying.Sources from the forestry directorate said 10,000 hectares of woodland had been lost to the fire. Seven planes and five helicopters were fighting the blaze but strong winds and excessive heat made it difficult to get it under control.Antalya has some of the richest remains of Greek civilisation in Turkey and is the nation's top tourist destination receiving about 7 million tourists each year, mostly during the summer period.http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL211358
As in the days of Noah...
