The soaring flames sweeping Turkey have been raging since Wednesday, burning down forests and some settlements, and encroaching on villages and tourist destinations.
Wild fire had spread to the Aegean Sea on Turkey's western coast and spanned a region stretching 300 kilometers and covering most of the country's top resorts.
Tourists realized how serious things were when authorities cut off the electricity and the ventilation at hotels and resorts. Blazes that erupted Wednesday to the east of the tourist hotspot Antalya on Turkey's scenic southern coast have officially killed four people and injured nearly 200.
Deadly wildfires threatened to scare off tourists who had only just started to return to Turkey in what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had hoped would be a boon for the developing country's fragile economy.
Turkish authorities forced the evacuation of entire villages and Mediterranean coast hotels already reeling from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic.
The blow the fires threaten to deal to Turkey's tourism-dependent economy and the admission that the country had no firefighting planes has put Erdogan's government under pressure.
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