Is Your Heart Really Burning?

There is a popular saying in Turkish, “İçimiz Yanıyor” (We are burning inside). Nowadays, it is said to be the devastating wildfire surrounding Turkey. In the summer of 2025, 13 out of 81 cities have been affected by the wildfire in Türkiye. İzmir, the most affected region, saw its airport shut down, while in Eskişehir, 10 firefighters lost their lives. One of them married only one week before and got the job a little while ago. In Bursa, a water tanker belonging to a private company headed to the fire zone and three people lost their lives in the line of duty. Despite a tire blowout, a local farmer did not stop and kept delivering water to the firefighters. While people risk their lives in order to rescue nature, keyboard warriors just sit back and write “İçimiz Yanıyor” (We are burning inside). If we do not get rid of cliches, we will not be able to overcome natural disasters.

While the locals are trying their best to rescue even a little hectare of the forest, what is the government doing? The government is trying to shift the blame onto municipalities in order to escape responsibility. While it declared in 1998 that responsibility for wildfires belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, it now claims that the blame lies with municipalities run by the main opposition party. 

Instead of debating who is to blame, what else are they doing?  The General Directorate of Forestry (OGM), under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, had allocated a budget of 500 million Turkish Lira in 2024 for combating forest fires. However, a large proportion of this budget was never used for fire rescue purposes, and no aircraft purchases were made before the fire season, which is actually the most crucial one as the fire zones are generally mountainous, thus needing air help. 

It is reported that the Presidency owns 8 VIP planes. If these planes, valued roughly at 125 million dollars each on average, were sold, the total revenue could be 1 billion dollars. With this amount, Türkiye could buy approximately 33 Bombardier CL-415 firefighting planes (each costing around 30 million dollars) and 400 Air Tractor AT-802F firefighting aircraft (each costing around 2.5 million dollars. Selling even one of the VIP planes of the presidency plane would benefit the forests. 

It is indeed very tedious to know that despite having the means, Türkiye cannot prevent the fires. Therefore, it is easy to sit back and write “İçimiz Yanıyor” (We are burning inside). But if people do really care and oppose the government’s actions towards fires, maybe our nature would not be damaged.