The head of the Air Fire Control and Logistics Center of the Ministry of Defense of Iran said that the Iranian Armed Forces launched the first firefighting operation in large-scale forest fires in southern Turkish provinces.

Pilot Mohammad Mehdi Nouri Al-e Agha said here on Sunday that this operation was launched with the capacity of 40 tons of water after forest fires started in Antalya’s Manavgat district and spread over a large area.

He added that firefighting team and a firefighting aircraft designed by young Iranian experts with a capacity of 40 tons of water arrived in the city of Mu?la on Saturday evening, hoping that two more water-spraying helicopters would be deployed to the area the next days to help extinguish more areas and prevent the fire from progressing.