A wildfire that destroyed large swaths of forest in Turkey’s northwestern Bursa province has sparked intense public backlash, with opposition lawmakers and professional organizations accusing the government of willful neglect, cover for profiteering and clearing the way for business interests linked to the ruling party, Turkish Minute reported.
The fire, which broke out on Saturday between the Gürsu and Kestel districts of Bursa, led to mass evacuations and an emergency response. As the flames died down, however, reports emerged that the Yıldırım Municipality, run by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), had applied for a permit to open a limestone quarry and rock crushing facility in the area later affected by the fire, and in 2024, the Bursa Governor’s Office issued an “EIA not required” decision, removing the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment.
“This is the same site where a mine was planned,” Şirin Rodoplu Şimşek, chair of the Bursa Chamber of Architects, affiliated with the Turkish Union of Engineers and Architects Chambers (TMMOB) told the Cumhuriyet daily.
“We have warned that the existing mines pose a potential risk and can threaten nearby grazing and forest areas at any moment,” she said. “The possibility that this fire was started intentionally is among our suspicions.”
“Even if the fire wasn’t deliberate,” she added, “some companies might see this as an opportunity. Now that the land has lost its forest status, they may try to take advantage.”
Şimşek continued, saying: “The fact that a fire broke out so close to mining areas is highly significant. When precautions are not taken, and when fire hazards are allowed to exist in forest zones, I consider that to be intentional. In a country where no preventive steps are taken, where this is left entirely to individual responsibility, every fire becomes a planned act — something knowingly allowed to happen.”
She also warned that the fire damage could pave the way for zoning changes. “There’s a risk that efforts to remove the burned area’s forest classification are already on the horizon,” she said.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) group deputy chair Murat Emir said documents show the Yıldırım Municipality had filed its application for a mining facility in the area months before the fire. The site that burned, he said, matches the boundaries of that plan.
“The area destroyed in the fire, which started in Kestel and spread to Gürsu and Osmangazi, lies within the Dışkaya neighborhood,” Emir wrote on X. “Months ago, the AKP-run Yıldırım Municipality submitted a request to open a limestone quarry and rock crushing plant in that very forest. What did the Bursa Governor’s Office do? It issued an ‘EIA not required’ ruling and cleared the way. Now the forest is gone.”
Pointing to the loss of three volunteers who died trying to deliver water to the fire zone, Emir lambasted Agriculture and Forestry Minister İbrahim Yumaklı, who had previously deflected criticism by saying, “We don’t have any [firefighting] aircraft in our pocket.”
“We now know what was in their pocket,” Emir said. “Forest maps handed over to allies, contracts issued without environmental review and profit schemes drawn up at the expense of human life. This country has never before seen a betrayal on this scale.”
Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit, group deputy chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), also held the government responsible.
“The biggest responsibility for these fires lies with the AKP, with the institutions that failed to act and with the ministry itself for doing nothing,” she said, speaking at a press conference in parliament.
“Forests are burning, people are dying, insects, soil and habitats are vanishing,” Koçyiğit said. “Thousands are being displaced from their homes on the pretext of evacuation. Billions of lira in national resources are going up in smoke. Yet a mindset that wants us to call this fate and accept it as normal stands in front of the cameras and says nothing of substance.”
She rejected attempts to blame climate change alone, saying: “Shifting all responsibility onto climate crisis and rising temperatures is one of the greatest injustices.”
Referring to the fallen volunteers, Koçyiğit said: “We refuse to accept the idea that these deaths can be brushed aside with a few words of condolence. These are not fate. These were preventable deaths.”
She alleged that the government is directly responsible for both the fires and the human toll. “The number one priority should have been increasing the number of firefighting aircraft, modernizing all equipment, replacing and maintaining power lines and transformers and advancing in all these areas quickly. But instead, the government that privatized everything simply turned its back. That’s the root cause of these fires, their spread and the deaths,” she said.
According to a report by the Kısa Dalga news website citing official budget figures, only 65 million lira was spent on wildfire prevention in the first five months of 2025, while 697 million lira went toward budgets for hospitality and various ceremonies.
“These fires aren’t just causing a loss of life, the destruction of forest cover or the death of workers trying to intervene,” Koçyiğit said. “They’re also leading to enormous economic damage.”
“Putting out a single four-hour fire in Ezine cost 2.8 million lira in aircraft and helicopter operations alone,” she stated.
She also criticized understaffing at the Forestry Directorate General (OGM). “Experts say the OGM needs 80,000 staff members. It currently has only 40,000,” she said. “Only 12,000 of those are firefighting personnel, and many of them are not even officially registered.”
“Why aren’t more workers hired? Because of austerity,” she said. “But this year, that austerity has already cost 14 lives.”
The Gürsu fire has brought renewed attention to Turkey’s long-term fire data. Critics point out that the number of annual forest fires has steadily risen under the AKP, from an average of 1,916 per year before 2002 to 2,733 per year in the last decade.
Critics argue that despite a clear rise in the number of forest fires over the past two decades, authorities failed to take necessary precautions, such as expanding aerial firefighting capacity or increasing the budget and staffing of the forestry directorate. Instead of strengthening prevention, they say the government treated forest fires as an opportunity, allowing burned lands to lose their protected status and reallocating them for construction, mining and tourism projects, to ultimately fuel a system of public land profiteering.
