The wall of smoke from the raging crop fires was so dense that Ali Mohammad lost sight of his companions. With few trained firefighters in this part of Kurdish-held northeastern Syria, it was down to the 31-year-old teacher and others from his village to put out the flames.

But while Mr Mohammad managed to stumble to safety, fire scorching the back of his head as he ran, the others succumbed to the smoke.

“We’ve never seen anything like this. A fire happens here and we’ll go to put it out, and another happens somewhere else,” Ali’s cousin Fowaz Mohammad, 28, told The Daily Telegraph, perching on a plastic chair in a tent in the village of Kurayfat where his family are hosting condolences for his brother Saleh.

While blazes in this dry corner of the country, known as Rojava to the Kurds, are not unusual for this time of year, their unprecedented scale and ferocity have left farmers wondering if they are being started on purpose. And if so, who would do such a thing?