After destroying a large number of homes and shops, firefighters are still struggling Tuesday to put out the violent fires that struck northern and eastern Algeria, killing at least 34 people, including ten soldiers, since Sunday.

And a statement by the Ministry of Interior, Local Communities and Urban Planning said, "The civil protection interests succeeded in extinguishing most of the fires by 80 percent, after mobilizing without interruption throughout last night, strengthening field operations by land with human resources and equipment, and collaborating capabilities between the states."

The Civil Protection said in the afternoon that 11 fires were still burning in seven states in the north and east of the country.

Every summer, northern and eastern Algeria witnesses forest fires and agricultural lands, a phenomenon that worsens from year to year due to the impact of climate change that leads to droughts and heat waves.

In neighboring Tunisia, serious fires broke out in Tabarka, a border in the northwest, on Monday, in an area devastated by fire the previous week.

An AFP team was able to monitor significant damage and follow the intervention of helicopters and water bombers.

In Toga, in the northeast of the country, where 16 people died, the fire was almost completely contained, although some foci continued to burn, according to an AFP correspondent.

Since Sunday, about 100 fires have broken out in more than 15 governorates in Algeria, especially in Bouira, Jijel and Bejaia, areas that have already been affected in the past two years by serious fires that have killed about 130 people.

The Ministry of Defense said that the ten soldiers who died as a result of the fires were surrounded by fire while they were being evacuated from Bani Ksila in the Bejaia region, accompanied by residents of nearby villages.

The fires also injured more than 80 people, including 25 soldiers, in the Bejaia region, according to the local "Suman" radio.

The situation called for the evacuation of more than 1,500 people from some villages, as the fires approached their homes. The fires also destroyed seaside resorts that are popular tourist destinations in the summer.

The affected villages, many of which are located in the mountainous Kabylia region, are surrounded by dense forests and have been exposed to a severe heat wave for weeks, which recorded 48 degrees Celsius on Monday.

The heat wave dried up vegetation and made it more vulnerable to fires, which were fanned by high winds.

"I have nowhere to go. The fire destroyed my house and my son's house completely," said a woman in her seventies, crying on an Amazigh TV channel, after she lost her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter, in Ait Ousaleh, near Bejaia.

Footage released by local media showed fields and land on fire, charred cars and burnt storefronts. Witnesses told how the flames suddenly broke out.

In August 2022, massive fires claimed 37 lives in El Tarf Province, in northeastern Algeria. But the summer of 2021 recorded the largest death toll in decades when more than 90 people died in the fires that devastated the north, especially the Kabylie region.

On Monday, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune sent his condolences to the families of the victims.

The authorities said that more than 8,000 civil protection personnel and 525 trucks of various sizes intervened to fight the fire, along with firefighting planes and helicopters that had been rented recently, in addition to a high-capacity launcher to throw water on the fires.

The Ministry of the Interior called on citizens to "avoid the affected areas and use the toll-free numbers available to report" the fires.

The Public Prosecutor in Bejaia ordered the opening of preliminary investigations to determine the causes of the fires and to identify the perpetrators.

To avoid repeating the scenario of 2021 and 2022, the authorities worked to mobilize their resources with the approach of summer.

At the end of April, President Tebboune ordered the purchase of six medium-sized water bombers and the submission of requests for proposals to startups to provide drones used to monitor forest cover.

Then, in May, the Ministry of the Interior announced the imminent acquisition of a water bomber plane, the leasing of six more planes from a South American company with its technical teams, and announcing the request for offers to purchase six medium-sized water bombers.

The authorities have also prepared helicopter landing sites in ten states.

Algeria also placed an order to Russia for the purchase of four water bombers, but their delivery was delayed due to "the repercussions of the crisis in Ukraine."