[1/3] A wildfire burns near buildings in the countryside, causing some residents to evacuate, in al-Marana village, Homs, Syria July 18, 2023 in this handout image. SHAM FM/Handout via REUTERSDAMASCUS, July 18 (Reuters) - Firefighters were battling on Tuesday to extinguish multiple wildfires raging across the central Syrian countryside, local civil defence officials said, as temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius in parts of the country. Another was raging across agricultural zones in the adjacent province of Homs, the head of civil defence there told SANA, saying civil defence teams were struggling to contain it due to "the mountainous and rugged terrain". Local outlet Sham FM reported that families from the village of al-Marana had fled their homes as the wildfire approached. They have shrunk Syria's wheat crop in recent years down some 75% from around 4 million tonnes annually pre-war.

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Persons: Amjad Hammad, SANA, Marana, Mounira, Kinda Makieh, Maya Gebeily, Alex Richardson Organizations: Firefighters, Sham, Thomson Locations: al, Homs, Syria, DAMASCUS, Hama, Palmyra, Damascus, Maldives