Cigarettes caused 1,803 fires across Istanbul in the first eight months of the year, accounting for 9.8 percent of 18,321 cases, municipal fire department data shows.
Records indicate that 1,435 fires affected brush or trash, 302 damaged homes, 32 struck workplaces, 17 hit other buildings, 10 involved warehouses, and seven impacted vehicles. Fatih recorded the highest number with 223 cases, followed by Esenyurt with 194, Güngören with 121, Zeytinburnu with 95, Bayrampaşa with 78, and Pendik with 76, while Bağcılar, Beşiktaş, Adalar, Maltepe and Tuzla registered the lowest counts. Additional causes included matches, lighters, sparks, stoves, children, electrical wiring, transformers, irons and heaters.
Cigarette fires fell from 5,209 in 2021 to 3,460 in 2025. Crews kept a six-minute, 52-second response time, saving 8,291 people and 12,077 animals in 20,368 rescues. They handled 91,978 events: 48,660 non-fire, 24,997 medical.
Taner Kaboğlu, deputy chairman of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation, urged self-extinguishing cigarettes. “Cigarettes cause severe damage,” he said.
