Introduction
Five years ago, Antalya and Muğla became the scene of the largest forest fires in the history of the Republic of Türkiye. In the summer of 2021, a forested area equivalent in size to approximately 200,000 football pitches was reduced to ashes, eight citizens lost their lives, and thousands of people were left homeless. While the pain of those days remains fresh, the same geography is now preparing for an entirely different role. In November 2026, Antalya will host the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. For the first time in its history, Türkiye will host a COP summit and assume the conference presidency.
This spatial and temporal coincidence is not accidental but rather a historical opportunity. The stage of global climate diplomacy will be set on the very lands where forest fires left their deepest marks five years ago. For Türkiye, this circumstance signifies far more than hosting a prestigious international event. It represents an unparalleled showcase for sharing with the world the lessons drawn from its own fire experience and for reshaping its fire governance policies.
The Scientific Link Between Forest Fires and Climate Change
It has now become a point of scientific consensus that forest fires cannot be explained solely by local negligence or seasonal drought, and that they are directly linked to global climate change. Research published over the past decade has revealed this connection in its various dimensions. For instance, one study demonstrated that human-induced climate change increased the area affected by forest fires in the United States between 1984 and 2015 by an additional 4.2 million hectares, nearly doubling the forest fire area that would have been expected in the absence of climate change.
More recent studies have rendered this picture even clearer. A 2024 study published in the journal Science analyzed global forest fire emissions between 2001 and 2023 and found that fire emissions outside the tropical regions are increasing rapidly, a trend directly linked to climate change. Another study published in 2025 demonstrated that under present-day climate conditions extreme fire years have become 88 to 152 percent more likely compared with the pre-industrial period. Specifically with respect to Türkiye, a study examining the impact of climate variability on forest fires confirms that temperature increases and irregular precipitation patterns directly elevate fire risk.
These global findings find concrete correspondence in the Mediterranean basin and particularly in Türkiye. According to World Weather Attribution, the hot, dry, and windy weather conditions that triggered the summer fires in Türkiye, Greece, and the island of Cyprus have become 10 times more likely and 22 percent more severe due to climate change. Such conditions, which during the pre-industrial era would have occurred once in a century, can now recur every decade with global warming of 1.3 degrees. The study likewise determined that winter precipitation prior to the fires has decreased by approximately 14 percent compared with the pre-industrial period, and that periods of hot and dry weather rendering vegetation prone to combustion have become 13 times more likely.
Türkiye’s Fire Risk in the Mediterranean Basin
These scientific findings directly reflect Türkiye’s reality. Located within the Mediterranean climate zone, Türkiye is among the countries where the impact of climate change on fire risk is felt most concretely, and this reality becomes more pronounced with each passing year. Approximately 29 percent of the country’s territory is covered by forests, and a significant portion of these forests is concentrated in the Mediterranean and Aegean regions, where summers are hot and arid. Temperature increases triggered by climate change, prolonged drought periods, and shifting precipitation regimes are rendering these forested areas increasingly vulnerable.
The 2021 disaster constituted the most painful manifestation of this reality. The fires that began in Antalya’s Manavgat district and spread to Muğla constituted the most extensive forest fire crisis in the history of the Republic. The affected regions were declared a “General Life-Affecting Disaster Area” . The crisis did not remain a merely environmental catastrophe but evolved into a multi-layered security issue with social, economic, and humanitarian dimensions. The region’s ecosystem, agricultural lands, and tourism infrastructure suffered severe damage.
However, 2021 was not an exception but rather part of an increasingly frequent pattern. In July 2025, a temperature of 50.5 degrees Celsius was recorded in Silopi in southeastern Türkiye, breaking the country’s all-time temperature record. Throughout that same summer, more than 81,000 hectares of forested land were damaged by fires, and 2025 entered the records as one of the most devastating fire years of the past decade. Across Europe as a whole, 2025 also became the worst fire year ever recorded. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report projects that temperatures, droughts, and fire-prone weather conditions in the Mediterranean basin, and consequently in Türkiye, will continue to increase until the middle of the century. These projections point to the necessity for Türkiye to reconsider its fire governance policies.
Lessons of 2021 and the Power of Local Knowledge
In the aftermath of the fires, the state initiated a rapid recovery process. Housing construction through TOKİ, subsidies for fire victims, and large-scale afforestation campaigns constituted the principal pillars of this process. These policies were significant and necessary steps that provided the material foundations of post-fire recovery. Field findings reveal that the recovery targeted by these policies has been defined predominantly through material indicators. Quantitative data such as the number of houses, the amount of subsidies, and the number of saplings planted have come to the fore in official discourse as the principal benchmarks of normalization.
The field research conducted as part of a doctoral thesis study between 2021 and 2025 reveals that the insecurity experienced by the local population affected by the fires consists of three interwoven layers. The first of these is ecosystemic insecurity. The loss of century-old olive trees, plant species endemic to the region, and the natural fabric has been experienced by the local population as an irreparable rupture. The afforestation campaigns conducted by the state are an important step. Nevertheless, the notion that new saplings cannot easily replace century-old trees is widely articulated in the field. The second layer, economic insecurity, has manifested itself particularly in the disappearance of forest-dependent livelihoods such as beekeeping and olive cultivation. The fire created not only material damage but also a rupture that profoundly shook people’s confidence in their futures. The third and perhaps most deeply felt layer is ontological insecurity. The burning of homes signified not merely a physical loss but also the destruction of personal history, social memory, and familiar space. The new housing constructed by TOKİ has filled a critical gap in meeting the physical need for shelter. Nevertheless, it has been observed that these dwellings have generated certain problems for the local population concerning their compatibility with village life and matters of spatial alienation.
The interconnected structure of these three layers of insecurity demonstrates that normalization cannot be completed solely through physical reconstruction. Furthermore, the high level of social sensitivity on this issue makes the regular and transparent informing of the public during post-fire processes important. The fact that approximately 47.6 percent of the 2,793 fires that occurred in 2021 were recorded as having "unknown" causes laid the groundwork for certain question marks to form within society. Although Article 169 of the Constitution explicitly stipulates that burned forest areas cannot be used for other purposes, sensitivities persist in social memory regarding the possibility of opening such areas to construction or tourism investments. For this reason, strengthening effective public information mechanisms during post-fire processes and ensuring continuity in the communication established with local populations are significant for the re-establishment of trust between state and society.
Alongside this field reality, the 2021 experience brought to light another critical lesson regarding fire governance. Forest villagers, owing to the vital bond they have established with the forest, intervened in the fires through distinctive methods. They formed grassroots surveillance networks via WhatsApp groups, placed water containers along roadsides, and used traditional agricultural implements as fire-extinguishing tools. Behind these practices lies a sense of belonging to the forest. This sense of belonging offers an advantage that should be taken into consideration in combating forest fires.
A significant paradigm shift in this direction is also taking place in the international fire management literature. It is increasingly acknowledged that centralized and technically focused suppression strategies alone fall short in combating large-scale fires, and may even pave the way for more devastating fires in the long run. Controlled burning, seasonal monitoring, and the active participation of local communities in fire management have come to the fore as indispensable components of modern fire governance.
The Fire Governance Agenda from COP30 to COP31
This paradigm shift was carried onto the official agenda of global climate policy at the Climate Summit convened in 2025 prior to COP30, which was held in the Brazilian city of Belém. The “Call to Action on Integrated Fire Management and Wildfire Resilience” , announced under the leadership of Brazil, was endorsed by 67 countries and four international organizations. This document calls upon governments to transition from a reactive fire suppression approach to integrated fire management based on prevention and preparedness. The integration of scientific knowledge with traditional and local knowledge, the active participation of local communities in fire governance, and the strengthening of cross-border cooperation are among the fundamental principles of the Call to Action. The Global Fire Management Hub, established within the FAO, has been designated as the coordination mechanism in this domain.
The COP31 President and Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Murat Kurum, emphasized that the climate crisis has reached a critical threshold and drew attention to increasing forest fires, droughts, and biodiversity loss. Kurum’s statement that approximately 3.7 million square kilometers of forested land worldwide were lost to fires between 2024 and 2025 is a clear indication that the issue of fires will occupy a central place on the COP31 agenda. Owing to Antalya’s hosting of the conference, forest fires, heat waves, and Mediterranean-specific climate risks for coastal countries are expected to be among the prominent topics on the agenda.
Türkiye’s COP31 presidency offers a historical opportunity for translating the Call to Action adopted during the COP30 process from words into action. Transforming the framework set out by COP30 into concrete implementation steps at COP31 will enable Türkiye to attain a strong position in climate diplomacy.
The Symbolic and Strategic Importance of Antalya
Antalya’s hosting of COP31 carries great symbolic and strategic significance. This summit, to be held in the very geography where the fire disaster that profoundly shook the country occurred five years ago, provides a unique foundation for Türkiye to bring its fire experience into global climate adaptation debates.
COP31 is an ideal showcase for Türkiye to present its community-based fire governance model to the international community. Collaborative governance models that bring together the locally specific knowledge of forest villagers with institutional fire response capacity, operating both top-down and bottom-up, directly correspond with the principle of “empowering and including local actors” articulated in the Call to Action during the COP30 process. Türkiye can support this principle through concrete applications by initiating community-based fire governance pilot projects in fire-affected regions.
Furthermore, Türkiye, through its position within the Mediterranean climate zone and as a country directly experiencing the effects of climate change on fire regimes, holds the potential to deepen cooperation with coastal countries and Mediterranean basin nations facing similar risks. Countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal are also grappling with similar fire crises, and the necessity of a coordinated approach encompassing the Mediterranean basin becomes more apparent each year. COP31 will likewise constitute an important platform for concretizing this regional cooperation agenda.
Policy Recommendations
In light of these assessments, Türkiye can take three concrete steps to bring fire governance to the center of climate policy. These recommendations aim to address areas that have not yet found correspondence in Türkiye’s nationally determined contributions.
First, the existing volunteer program within the General Directorate of Forestry should be developed in such a way as to include forest villagers in high-fire-risk regions as a priority target group. The development of the volunteer system within the scope of TARAP is included as a general objective in the updated First Nationally Determined Contribution, and supporting this infrastructure with a preventive and locally focused approach will make a significant contribution to the process. Article 15 of the Call to Action encourages the recognition of indigenous peoples and local communities’ knowledge in fire management and the development of community-based fire governance programs. In line with this, Türkiye can further strengthen its existing capacity by integrating into the formal early warning and monitoring infrastructure the land knowledge of populations living in forest villages, their experience in combating fires, and the informal surveillance mechanisms they have established.
Second, local populations should be more effectively included in decision-making processes during post-fire normalization. Türkiye’s nationally determined contributions include stakeholder participation and local climate action plans within their general framework, and adapting this infrastructure to post-disaster reconstruction processes will offer a significant opportunity. The 2021 fires experience demonstrated that reflecting local needs in planning processes increases process efficiency. In this regard, Türkiye can develop institutional mechanisms through neighborhood-based consultation meetings at the local level. This step will also fully align with Articles 15 and 20 of the Call to Action.
Third, a regular and inclusive public information strategy regarding the causes of fires and the future of burned areas should be developed. The inclusion of this domain in Türkiye’s nationally determined contributions offers an important opportunity in terms of strengthening communication processes. Drawing upon the 2021 fires experience, regular informational efforts that will increase social awareness about the causes of fires, the status of burned areas, and ecological recovery processes will be beneficial. Türkiye can establish an institutional framework that ensures the publication of independent scientific assessment reports following each major fire event, proactive informing about the legal status of burned areas, and the regular monitoring of ecological restoration processes. This step is the precondition for rebuilding social trust and increasing public support for fire governance, and it can also be associated with Article 18 of the Call to Action.
Conclusion
The forest fires that occurred five years ago in Antalya acquire new meaning today through COP31, which will be held on the same lands. As the eyes of the international community turn toward Antalya, the message Türkiye will deliver must be not only diplomatic but also experience-based and concrete. Türkiye’s COP31 presidency is not merely a diplomatic arena but a historical opportunity to share with the international community the lessons drawn from its own fire experience, to develop community-based fire governance, and to make concrete contributions to global fire policies. Carrying the implementation dimension of the Integrated Fire Management Call to Action adopted during the COP30 process onward to COP31 will reinforce Türkiye’s pioneering role in this field.
Fire management is not merely a technical issue. It is a multi-layered governance process encompassing the relationship of trust between state and society, the recognition of local knowledge, and the social dimensions of climate adaptation. The flames that reduced Antalya’s forests to ashes in 2021 today serve as a powerful reminder to the world leaders who will gather in the same city. COP31 offers an unparalleled window of opportunity for the concretization of this holistic approach on the global stage.
