ALGIERS: Wildfires tearing through forested areas of northern Algeria have killed at least 65 people, state television reported on Wednesday, as some of the most destructive blazes in the country's history continued to rage.
The government has deployed the army to help fight the fires, which have burnt most fiercely in the mountainous Kabylie region, and 28 of the dead are soldiers, with another 12 critically injured with burns.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune declared three days of national mourning for the dead and froze state activities not related to the fires.
Forest fires have set large parts of Algeria, Turkey and Greece aflame over the past week and a European Union atmosphere monitor said the Mediterranean had become a wildfire hotspot aided by increasingly hot weather.
Dozens of separate fires have raged through forest areas across northern Algeria since Monday and on Tuesday Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud accused arsonists of igniting the flames, without providing any evidence.
The worst hit area has been Tizi Ouzou, the largest district of the Kabylie region, where houses have burned and residents fled to shelter in hotels, hostels and university accommodation in nearby towns.
The government has said it will compensate those affected.
Images of trapped villagers, terrified livestock and forested hillsides reduced to blackened stumps were shared on social media, many of them accompanied by pleas for help.
AFP journalists saw villagers desperately trying to put out the spreading fires with makeshift brooms in an effort to save their homes.
High winds fuelled the rapid spread of the fires in the tinder-dry conditions created by a heat wave across North Africa and the wider Mediterranean, fire official Youcef Ould Mohamed told the state-run APS news agency.
A total of 69 separate wildfires remained active Wednesday, spread across 17 provinces, emergency services spokesman Nassim Barnaoui told reporters.
Most of the fires and 16 of the deaths were recorded in Tizi Ouzou district, in the mainly Berber region of Kabylie, east of the capital Algiers.
"I left all my stock in my village and fled to Tizi Ouzou with my wife and three children," said Abdelhamid Boudraren, a shopkeeper from the village of Beni Yeni.
"Luckily I own a flat in the centre of Tizi Ouzou where I'm holed up with my family and some neighbours."
There have been mounting calls for aid convoys to be sent to the worst-hit districts with food and medicine from the capital.
On Wednesday, an AFP correspondent saw several lorries headed to Tizi Ouzou with aid donated by the public.
An appeal for volunteer doctors to assist the city's overstretched medical services also appeared on Facebook.
State media have reported four arrests for suspected arson.
Meteorologists expect the heat wave across North Africa to continue until the end of the week, with temperatures in Algeria reaching 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit).
In neighbouring Tunisia, the capital Tunis hit an all-time record of 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.
The Tunisian emergency services reported 15 fires across the north and northwest, but no casualties.
On the northern shores of the Mediterranean, Turkey reported eight deaths and Greece three from wildfires that have raged for the past two weeks.
Each summer, Algeria endures seasonal wildfires but rarely with anything approaching this year's toll.
In 2020, nearly 440 square kilometres (170 square miles) of forest were destroyed by fire, and several people were arrested on suspicion of arson.
On Monday, the UN released a major report showing how the threat from global warming is even more acute than previously thought.
It highlighted how scientists are quantifying the extent to which human-induced warming increases the intensity and/or likelihood of a specific extreme weather event, such as a heatwave or a wildfire.
Climate change amplifies droughts, creating ideal conditions for wildfires to spread out of control and inflict unprecedented material and environmental damage. -- Agencies
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