Watching Bodrum Go Up In Flames

Icmeler, Bodrum, Turkey
A day after we get our boat lifted out of the water:

In the space of a few seconds the azure skies of Bodrum suddenly turned a dirty brown this morning. Looking up at the mountains behind us we spotted a huge plume of smoke. Turns out it's another forest fire, but this one is (and I use the present tense because it's still raging) close to the boat yard, so all employees are on stand-by with a whacking great big hose pipe running across the forecourt. As the wind blew the fire across the mountains it came over the top of the closest range to us and we could see flames that must have been at least 30ft high. See the pics for the evidence, especially the last one. The helicopters are buzzing around us, dumping sea water all over the countryside.

 

 

A local news channel has reported that a man was spotted setting off the fire in four different places on the hills and the PKK (Kurds) has been blamed. The story goes that the leader of the PKK, who is currently in prison, has been quoted as saying "we will burn the forests of Turkey". Whether this is true or not is debatable. The sensitive issue of the Kurds is frequently brought up and the Kurds are often blamed for events, the validity of which is questionable. More likely, and another common story, is that it is property developers who burn the land. Perhaps what really happened was some had dropped a fag butt.

Might not look much but we estimated these flames to be approx. 50ft high!

Either way to see nature destroyed in this manner is very upsetting. And let's not forget that there are five boatyards here accommodating hundreds of wooden and plastic vessels, all full of fuel and gas. You wouldn't want to see that going up in smoke . I think we might arrange to be dropped back in the water!