STOP PRESS FIRE EXTINGUISHED!

For almost a week now a forest fire has been burning in the Pizzorne, the range of hills that separate the Val di Lima from the plain of Lucca. The main areas affected are above Lugliano, Casabasciana and Benabbio.

I was first made aware of a major forest fire on the morning of March 31^st when, looking out of our bedroom window at Longoio, I saw this:

No, it was not a volcanic eruption, just an arsonist near Lugliano. Why should someone do this? I suggest one of the following reasons:

1. A bonfire of brushwood and leaves got out of hand and started spreading through the nearby forest
2. Someone wanted a quick way of clearing part of the forest so as to create new areas of pasture for his cattle, sheep and goats.
3. A mad person / vandal decided to have ‘fun’ with nature. Some people are afflicted by a disease called pyromania in which they enjoy setting fire to things. Also, it could be a person who might have had a grudge against the forestry commission or a neighbour.

The fire was aggravated by two factors:

1. The extreme dryness of our woodland which has hardly received any rainfall since the start of the year.
2. The strong winds which have been afflicting our area over the past week. March here is particularly windy month.

On March 31st the papers reported that there was clearly a pyromaniac behind the fires devastating the mountains around Bagni di Lucca. As in last Wednesday’s fires, the flames started in the late afternoon, making it impossible to use airplanes and helicopters until the morning. There were three main fires affecting the whole valley between Benabbio and Lugliano.

The flames, extended for over five hundred acres, are inaccessible and difficult to reach. Two helicopters from the regional forest firefighting service were also used. In the early morning operations were made difficult by the heavy accumulation of smoke, but visibility improved in the early afternoon, allowing the use of Canadair and helicopters.

This is the photo I took of the flames from our bedroom window. They are, clearly, more visible by night:

On the ground three teams of fire fighters, three teams from the Tuscan Volunteer body and a fire brigade team were fighting the flames. Some motorbike riders were also employed in firefighting.

For two days there seemed to be no sign of the flames abating. The smell of smoke really got up my nostrils. I thought what a way to wake up to springtime for all the poor wild forest animals being burnt alive at this moment…to say nothing of the little birds in their tree nests….tragic, truly tragic!

Meanwhile, the sad rumble of water bombers continues to haunts the horizon. A third one has been called in today. The fires, though diminished, still burn our hills.

PS In Italy water bombers are called Canadair. This is because the aircrafts used are Canadair CL-415s, amphibious aircraft  designed specifically for aerial firefighting and built by Canadair.

Rain is forecast today. Let’s hope it goes some way to finally extinguish the fire, the likes of which I have never seen before. And it’s just gone March! Is the fire the result of global warming or just more mad people on the loose? Perhaps it’s a combination of both…

Anyway, full marks for the courage of the fire-fighting services and volunteers in attacking the flames. I truly hope the rest of this year will be quieter for them but somehow I doubt it. Look what happened last year near Pisa in my post here:

Hell on Earth near Pisa

Incidentally Sandra reminded me that we spent a night in that same forest way back in 2005. She writes: “What worries me is that early on on our Italian adventure we got thoroughly lost in the Pizzorne, even had to sleep there ‘au plen air’, was scary but safer than continuing in the dark with huge boulders everywhere due to a heavy storm. But reason for saying this is that along the way we saw very many abandoned houses some of which seemed lived in so I am wondering if this fire has affected these places too. Seems really a very sick person if this is truly arson I cannot believe this is really horrible.”

PS Apparently I have invented a new word in the English language: ‘brexiting fire’. My logic was thus: the fire is damaging our natural environment. Brexit is damaging our social environment. Verb ‘to brexit’=’to damage social environments’. By analogy, ‘to damage natural environments’. Gerundive phrase: ‘brexiting away’.