Shortly after sunrise on 22 July, a wildfire ignited in the forests of Eskişehir’s Seyitgazi district of Turkey and, driven by shifting winds, raced toward Afyonkarahisar’s İhsaniye district near Sarıcaova village. Nineteen Forestry Directorate employees and five AKUT search-and-rescue volunteers were inside the fire line when the wind veered unexpectedly. Their access road vanished behind walls of flame, forcing several crews to sprint for a small cave. Moments later, the fire looped back. Ten people—five forestry workers and five AKUT volunteers—were unable to escape. Fourteen others were injured; one remains in intensive care.
Official Reaction
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry İbrahim Yumaklı confirmed the deaths and announced a combined administrative and judicial investigation into command decisions, communications, and equipment failures. The victims’ remains were transported to the Ankara Forensic Medicine Institute for DNA identification before being released to grieving families who kept vigil outside the facility.
Who They Were
Authorities named the fallen as Sercan Utmi, Hilmi Şahin, Eyüp Dereli, Tolunay Kocaman, Enes Kızılyel, İlker Onarıcı, Tekin Enes Sarıyıldız, Bayram Eren Arslan, Muharrem Can, and Alperen Özcan.
Bayram Eren Arslan, twenty-four, had earned a reputation for appearing at every emergency he heard about—from lost livestock to the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake. “If he told us first he’d lose precious minutes, so he just went,” his father Gürsel said through tears.
Tolunay Kocaman, twenty-eight, had joined the Kırka Forestry office barely a month earlier. He married on 14 July and returned from honeymoon only three days before deploying. Childhood friend Arif Taş recalled their last meeting: “He jumped out of the truck smiling and shouted, ‘Make way, Tolunay is here!’ We hugged. Minutes later, he was back on the line.”
Muharrem Can, forty-two, was an aerospace engineer at Turkish Aerospace Industries who refused lucrative offers from abroad because, in his sister Saliha Kırbaş’s words, “he wanted to work for his country.” After saving several lives in the rubble of Hatay during the 2023 earthquakes, he spent the past three days battling the Eskişehir blaze.
Forest workers Sercan Utmi and Hilmi Şahin, hired on the same day in August 2022, perished side by side while reinforcing fire breaks near Sarıcaova. Dozer operator Eyüp Dereli, thirty-seven, father of two, had texted colleagues only hours before asking whether the promised pay raise would appear in this month’s salary.
Eyewitness Accounts
Ercan Temel, leader of the municipal OBAK rescue unit, said his team withdrew from the slope seconds before a blow-up. “We were above them on the track. We shouted to fall back; they tried to climb but didn’t make it.” Burned-out heavy machinery still litters the hillside where the fire overtook the crews.
Ongoing Operations and Next Steps
By Thursday afternoon, officials reported the main front eighty percent contained, with helicopters and fixed-wing tankers continuing water drops south of Sarıcaova. The government has promised life-long support for the victims’ families and accelerated procurement of high-temperature protective gear.
A Nation in Mourning
Flags are at half-mast at forestry depots and AKUT stations across Türkiye. In Ankara, relatives embraced sooty-faced volunteers as each coffin emerged from the mortuary doors. Sixteen-year-old Elif Arslan held her brother Bayram’s helmet and whispered, “He saved birds, trees, people—so I know he’s in heaven. But it still hurts.”
With the summer fire season only beginning, crews have already returned to the charred hills of Seyitgazi. Their grief is fresh, yet so is their resolve to defend what Turks call the “yeşil vatan”—the green homeland.
Photo: T24