Major fire in southern Italy – PB nearly torched

During the early hours of Wednesday morning, an uninhabited area of the Cilento National Park caught fire and rapidly burnt out of control. This fire spread and engulfed several homes and then moved with alarming speed towards the villages of Casa del Conte and San Marco di Castellabate … which had to be evacuated. The entire coastal region for several miles was pretty much ablaze …. it is all tinder dry and the trees and brush undergrowth burnt out of control.

Things were made slightly more exciting because every house has a supply of bottled gas (there is no mains gas in the area) and these bottles (and some big tanks of Propane) were exploding every so often. It created quite a fireworks display I can tell you.

The local paper carries a series of articles on the matter here …> http://www.ilmattino.it/mattino/page_view.php?pbk=1&Date=20070823&Edition=SALERNO&Section=NAZIONALE&Number=35&vis=G … sorry it’s in Italian but you can get the general idea. the picture of a burning house is typical of many that went up in flames.

Our house was completely surrounded by the fire and we were trapped and unable to escape for a little while. Eventually we managed to drive down a narrow little road through the blaze and get out onto the main road down in the valley and to safety.

It was really quite exciting … made even more so by the Italian predisposition to panic and scream Madonna etc etc at the slightest provocation. The local so-called fire brigade had three helicopters flying around getting water from the sea and dropping it all around us but the truly exciting bit (and which assisted our escape) was a bloody great big seaplane that lands on the sea, scoops up a huge tank full of water into it’s belly and then flies over the fire dropping it out as it goes.

Having several thousand gallons of seawater dumped literally on top of you by the Italian airforce is an experience not to be missed. Do you drown or do you burn to death?

However all worked out in the end and only 3 people died … which given the size and intensity of the blaze was nothing short of miraculous – maybe the prayers to Madonna worked.

The village is now a total wreck but at least the Cappucino machine in the local bar still works so it can’t all be bad eh?