Syrian Coast Wildfires Expose Fragile Response and Threaten HLP Rights

In early July, an unprecedented wave of wildfires swept through forests and agricultural lands in the rural areas of the Lattakia and Tartous governorates along the Syrian coast.

As of Monday, fires were “largely under control” but the risk of “flare-ups remains high,” according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). On July 12, Minister of Emergencies Raed Al-Saleh said in a post on ‘X’ that firefighter teams were able “stop the spread of the fire on all fronts, which is the most important step toward controlling the fires.”  

Accompanied by strong winds and rugged terrain, the two-week-long fires triggered landmines and unexploded ordnance left from the war, which further spread the flames, hindered firefighting efforts, and exposed the fragility of infrastructure and emergency planning. In addition to the immense environmental and economic losses, the fires threaten the housing, land, and property rights of residents, having consumed farmland and destroyed many homes.

The areas most affected lie within the Turkmen Mountains, Kassab, and Al-Badrusiya in the northern Lattakia countryside. These regions witnessed repeated waves of displacement during the conflict, before residents gradually began returning in early 2025 to revive their olive and citrus groves. After the Assad regime regained full control of Qastal Maaf in 2018, its Turkmen residents — most of whom had fled to Turkey or Lattakia city — were only allowed a brief visit in 2020, during which they saw the extent of destruction to their homes and farms. Their actual return home did not begin until after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

As of Sunday, the wildfires have destroyed 15,000 hectares of farmland, displaced 1,150 people and affected more than 14,0000, damaging dozens of homes, according to the latest OCHA figures published on July 13. 

OCHA’s bulletin published on July 7 noted that outdated firefighting equipment, a power outage at the Al-Basit electricity station that disabled four water pumping stations, and a weak communications network all hindered coordination between firefighting and rescue teams and deepened the disaster’s impact.

In the first week of July, Civil Defence teams responded to more than 170 fires, most of which were concentrated in the northern countryside. Eight of them were major outbreaks that took days to bring under control. Data from the Ministry of Emergency Affairs indicated that wind speeds exceeding 40 km/h, along with the presence of landmines and war remnants, further complicated efforts.

According to Civil Defence data, workers responded to 441 fires in Lattakia and 308 fires in Tartous during June and July. The largest eight fires alone destroyed nearly 14,000 hectares of forests and orchards – equivalent to three percent of Syria’s total forest cover, and at least 70 rural homes burned down, with several families losing property deeds.

Local activists estimated that farmers’ losses due to the destruction of agricultural land and crops stood at around USD 50 million, including olive and citrus groves, livestock, and beehives. According to the Syrian Red Crescent,  as of July 7, a total of  202 beehives had been lost and thirteen farm animals killed.

Local sources told The Syria Report that 40 percent of medicinal and aromatic plants in the affected areas have been lost, worsening the impact on the livelihoods of women and small-scale farmers.

Ammar, a farmer from the village of Qastal Maaf in the Turkmen Mountains, said the villagers had to confront the fires alone in the first few hours using buckets of water, as firefighting crews arrived late. They lost most of their land, including old olive and lemon trees, as well as dozens of livestock and beehives. Ammar believes these losses have further weakened their land and housing rights, as the fire “reset everything to zero” just a few months after they had returned to land they were forced to abandon during the war. 

OCHA estimated that approximately “70 percent of livelihoods in the assessed areas rely on agriculture; however, most agricultural systems are currently inoperable.” In villages such as Khadra and Joret Maa, repeated wildfires have devastated farmland, leaving it “nearly barren and unproductive,” said OCHA. 

Civil defence has relied on 16 firefighting aircraft, with assistance from Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. On  July 6, upon request from the Syrian government, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism was activated, and on July 8, via the Copernicus Emergency management System, the EU started sharing with local authorities satellite imagery and other geospatial data of the affected areas. 

Despite Emergency Minister Raed Al-Saleh’s announcement of “near-total control” of the fires — except for two remaining hotspots — the greatest danger remains in the Al-Furnlaq area, home to Syria’s largest nature reserve spanning 1,500 hectares. A safety perimeter has been established to prevent the fire from reaching it. However, weak electricity and water networks and communication outages continue to hinder coordination and delay relief, fuelling residents’ fears of further loss of land and homes if the response continues to lag or the fires reignite.

Despite the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs’s announcement of an emergency room to provide shelter and compensate those affected, locals describe a wide gap between promises and reality. Ahmad, from the village of Zanzaf in Qastal Maaf subdistrict, said that more than 50 families were displaced again due to the fires and disruption of basic services, while remaining families have lived without water or electricity for a week and are afraid to leave their homes for fear of theft. Ahmad noted that firefighting crews were delayed on the first day, followed by a failure of the local power grid and water pumping station, exacerbating the damage and increasing the risk of homes catching fire.

In terms of critical infrastructure, the wildfires have affected the “electric supply to the water pumping stations and the water networks in the affected access to water for more than 10,000 people in the area. Access to essential services, including water and electricity, has been disrupted in multiple villages,” according to OCHA.

Local activists told The Syria Report that the absence of equipped shelters forced residents of more than 60 affected villages to evacuate individually to neighbouring towns without receiving any tangible aid so far. This unorganised displacement raises concerns about lost property deeds – either burned or left behind in empty villages – and the risk of powerful actors seizing vacant land and homes, making the protection of land and housing rights an urgent priority on par with containing the fires themselves.

Hadi, from the nearby village of Beit Awan, recounted receiving a call about shepherds trapped by flames atop a mountain. “We reached them and took shelter in a house, but the flames devoured around a thousand heads of livestock, large swathes of olive and fig trees, and even poultry farms and pets weren’t spared,” he said.

Given the severe drought currently affecting Syria, restoring the lost forest cover is increasingly difficult. International environmental organisations have called for a long-term recovery plan, including demining and reforestation, with guarantees to protect the property and housing rights of returning families so that the disaster does not become another cause of dispossession.

The coastal fires serve as a reminder that climate change – when combined with weak governance and ongoing conflict – threatens not only the environment but also people’s rights to land and shelter. Any recovery plan for the region will not succeed unless it is designed in partnership with local communities and guarantees legal protection against displacement and loss of property.

On July 10, the United Nations announced it had allocated USD 625,000 to support the emergency response, confirming that its teams are conducting a rapid assessment of needs on the ground. The funds “will enable humanitarian partners – primarily the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) – to deliver urgent assistance to thousands of people affected by the fires,” said the United Nations.

In parallel, on July 8, the  multi-donor pooled fund Aid Fund for Syria (AFS) announced a USD 500,000 in emergency funding line to support the White Helmets’ response to the wildfires. The funds “will be used to integrate a dedicated wildfire response module into the White Helmet’s existing grant with AFS,” said AFS in a statement. 

According to the latest OCHA update, UNDP has “allocated USD 600,000 to support the White Helmets in their wildfire response efforts, enabling the provision of 280,280 liters of diesel, the deployment of heavy machinery for creating firebreaks and clearing terrain, and the repair of emergency vehicles alongside the enhancement of communication equipment.”

On Monday, the Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF) managed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) published a detailed 6-month response plan with a requested allocation of CHF 519,810. This plan will target 25,000 people affected by the fires and includes a budget line of CHF 287,344 to distribute multipurpose cash assistance among 1,000 families for two months.

The Syria INGO Regional Forum (SIRF) issued on Monday a joint statement by national and international NGOs urging “the international community to provide rapid, flexible funding and coordinated support to scale up the emergency response, assist affected and displaced families, and restore essential services.”