The fire that reached nine neighborhoods in three Balıkesir districts began with a welding spark, in a garden, at a house.
The latest. The Balıkesir governor's office said on 31 July 2026 that the provincial gendarmerie command had established the cause of the Gömeç fire, which started on 29 July and is now largely under control. Two men, given in the statement as O.G. and M.Y., were welding in the garden of their home when a spark set the ground alight. The Burhaniye magistrate's court has jailed both pending trial. Elsewhere the Fethiye fire is fully out, Çine in Aydın is still burning on its second day, and a new fire started at Susurluk in Balıkesir on Friday against winds above 50 km/h (31 mph). Agriculture and Forestry Minister İbrahim Yumaklı put the national count at 218 fires in three days.
What the gendarmerie found
The statement is specific about the moment. The fire began at about 1:30pm on Wednesday 29 July in open country at Kumgedik, in Gömeç, and the gendarmerie's work traced it to welding underway in the garden of the two men's house.
Neither man has been tried. In Turkish procedure the court order that put them in jail is pre-trial detention, not a conviction, and the governor's statement gives the detention order without naming an offense.
The province has not said whether anyone else is under investigation.
What the fire had already done
By the time the cause was published, the fire had taken three days and crossed two district lines.
Nine neighborhoods were affected, four in Gömeç, four in Ayvalık and one in Burhaniye. The governor's office evacuated 63 people from Hacıveliler, Tıfıllar and Bağyüzü in Ayvalık and housed them at the student dormitory in the town.
Five people were hurt, none of them seriously: two firefighters from Balıkesir's metropolitan municipality, one from İzmir's, one Bursa regional forestry worker and one civilian. They were treated at Ayvalık State Hospital and Atatürk City Hospital, and the governor's office says all five are out of danger.
The livestock figure has moved. The governor's office now puts the number of animals taken out at 944, up from the 720 it gave a day earlier.
Its account of the response lists five planes, eight helicopters, 66 fire tenders, 40 municipal fire vehicles, 61 water tankers, 13 dozers, 27 excavators and graders, eight ambulances and three police water cannon, along with 60 forest volunteers and 944 personnel, the same figure it gives for the animals.
The first damage figures
Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum published the first assessment on Friday, covering the three fires where crews have finished enough to survey the ground.
Across Antalya, Muğla and Balıkesir, 65 separately titled units were heavily damaged or destroyed. The term is the one Turkish property law uses, and it covers a flat or a shop as readily as a house.
They break down as 20 at Kumluca in Antalya, 39 at Seydikemer in Muğla and six at Gömeç.
Seydikemer's 39 is the largest share, and it is the first damage number attached to the fire that emptied a hospital and 121 homes there on Wednesday. Kurum said assessment teams are still working.
Where the fires stand
Yumaklı said on Friday morning that the fire at Fethiye in Muğla is fully under control. Gömeç, Alanya in Antalya and Gülnar-Aydıncık in Mersin are largely so.
Çine is the one still fighting. It started at about 3pm on Thursday on Madran Dağı, in the Kavşit neighborhood, and its cause remains undetermined. The wind dropped overnight and the flames lost most of their force, and when it got light the damage was visible from the air: wide stretches of blackened forest, and trees burned through. Nine helicopters, three planes, 42 tenders, nine water tankers, four dozers and 315 people are working it.
Susurluk is new. Yumaklı said crews got to it quickly but the wind is running above 50 km/h, and he would not call any fire controlled until it is.
"We will not pass on any result until our colleagues say control has been fully achieved here," he said.
A count that climbed all day
Two official tallies came out two hours apart on Friday, and the numbers in the later one are higher.
The Directorate of Communications said at 3:43pm Türkiye time that 206 fires had been fought since 29 July, 133 of them outside forest land, with 202 fully controlled and four still going. Yumaklı, speaking at 5:38pm, gave 218 fires, 138 outside forest, 213 controlled and five going.
Both sets balance against themselves, so the gap is a tally rising through an afternoon rather than two arms of the state disagreeing.
Yumaklı put the average time it takes crews to reach a fire at 11 minutes and said the target this year is 10. He said the strong winds began on 29 July, that the ministry had flagged them a week ahead, and that the risk runs into next week.
The Directorate of Communications named 10 provinces where people should take particular care on Friday: Çanakkale, Balıkesir, Bursa, İzmir, Manisa, Aydın, Muğla, Antalya, Mersin and Adana. Gömeç, where a garden welding job reached nine neighborhoods, is in the second of them.