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Firefighting efforts have been hampered by the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance left over from the civil war, as the country grapples with the worst drought in decades.
July 4, 2025, 12:35 p.m. ET
Wildfires raged in Syria’s coastal region on Friday, the latest blazes in a string of more than 3,500 to have erupted in recent months across the country, amid one of its worst droughts in decades.
Syria’s civil defense agency, the White Helmets, said on Friday that it had called in additional teams from around the country to fight wildfires that had broken out a day earlier in the mountainous Latakia region along the Mediterranean coast.
Abdul Kafi Kayal, director of the White Helmets’ coastal division, said that firefighting efforts had been hampered by the rugged terrain along with the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance leftover from Syria’s 13-year civil war.
“We hope that in the coming hours, we will see some level of containment,” said Mr. Kayal in a voice recording, adding that strong winds had “significantly worsened the situation, causing the fires to spread to new areas.”
Earlier this week, Syria’s minister of emergency and disaster management, Raed al-Saleh, told the state news agency, SANA, that wildfires had “seriously increased” since early spring, with more than 3,500 recorded across almost every governorate between April and June.
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