ALGIERS, Aug 16, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Most of the deadly forest fires that have
hit northern Algeria in the past week are "under control" and no longer
endanger residents, the country's emergency services said.

  Firefighters were still struggling Sunday to put out 19 blazes, after over
90 people, including 33 soldiers, were killed in wildfires since August 9.

  "Most of these fires have been brought under control and don't represent a
danger to residents," said Colonel Farouk Achour, a spokesman for the civil
protection authority.

  The authority's efforts focus currently on the "protection of inhabited
areas, notably El Tarf, Bejaia, Jijel and Tizi Ouzou, Achour said.

  More than 74 fires had been extinguished in the past 24 hours, he added.

  The government has blamed arsonists and a blistering heatwave for the
dozens of blazes, but experts have also criticised authorities for failing to
prepare for the annual phenomenon.

  Algerian police said Sunday they had arrested 36 people including three
women after the lynching of a man suspected of having started one of the
deadly fires.

  "A preliminary enquiry... into the homicide, lynching, immolation and
mutilation... of Djamel Ben Ismail... led to the arrest of 36 suspects
including three women," police chief Mohamed Chakour told reporters.

  Ben Ismail, 38, had "turned himself in of his own accord" at a police
station in the hard-hit Tizi Ouzou region after hearing he was suspected of
involvement, he said.

  Algeria is Africa's biggest country by surface area, and although much of
the interior is desert, the north has over four million hectares (10 million
acres) of forest, which is hit every summer by fires.

  Last year some 44,000 hectares went up in flames.

  In neighbouring Morocco, firefighters worked through the night on Sunday
and into Monday to bring fires under control amid unfavourable winds.

  The fires have destroyed 200 hectares of forest, according to a forestry
official, but no victims have been reported.