THE’emergency fires on Vesuvius yes it is ended And the bonfires were off: to confirm it, in a post published on Facebook, was directly the Vesuvius National Park, which declared the end of the emergency following the absence of thermal alterations and, therefore, of active outbreaks. After more than 5 days of bonfires and the intervention of firefighters, civil protection and volunteers, the flames were therefore tamed: the official data have not yet been published, but the flames would have burned among the 800 and 1,000 hectares of territory, destroying some of the areas already strongly compromised by the fires of 2017.
But what is the current situation? He told us Silvano Somma, Forestry doctor of the Primaurora Association, activates at the forefront of the protection and safeguarding of Vesuvius and in the management of this fire.
What is the situation on Vesuvius after more than 5 days of fires and what were the greatest damage?
The Vesuvius National Park declared the end of the fire emergency: during the morning, however, the restart of some outbreaksextinct thanks to punctual interventions. At the moment on the field the volunteers of the Campania Region, together with some detachments of the firefighters.
Even if the official data have not yet been released, the flames have destroyed among the 800 and 1,000 hectares: the fire has partly traveled the Tirone Reserveretracing some areas of the old fire of 2017 and destroying some areas who had already been reforestate. Fortunately, the fire did not go too far downstream, so the reforest areas along the matrone road were not involved in the flames.
The problem is that a fire that re -proposes on the already set -up areas brings with it a high risk of desertification and of Consistent loss of biodiversitybut also the danger of invasion of allotone species. The bonfires also involved the areas of the “square of legality”, already strongly affected in 2017, where one was underway natural reforestation: most likely, this forest will not have the same ability to recover a second time. In particular, the woods of Robiniaone of the specific characteristics of the park: now small reforestation interventions will be carried out, which do not have an excessive impact.
In general, however, it was a fire that has spread to high severity and intensitycausing the complete destruction of the vegetation. Also for this reason, the state’s response was massive and timely: on the site they were lined up 6 Canadair, Four helicopters, and more than 100 people by land. The intervention of the army with heavy vehicles, then, made it possible to create size lines that broke the continuity of fuel.
What are the priorities to try to restore the previous situation?
Now the priorities are two: the monitoring and the reclamation. The same characteristics of the territory, both from the point of view of its conformation and from the point of view of vegetation, make it particularly predisposed to restart of the outbreakstherefore constant monitoring is an essential part to be able to intervene so punctual. Obviously, what could help reclaim the area massively is the rain, which could clearly stem the problem.
Only after turning off and the total reclamation of the bonfires (with the absence of new outbreaks), can we start thinking about the other elements, including the management of the rain itself: this territory is characterized by slopes ad high slope And, precisely because of the fire, there is no more coverage and protection of the vegetation, there is the risk of hydrogeological instability.
Clearly the reforestation can also help from this point of view: the more I stabilize the slope, the more I can reforest, the more I go to reforest and the more stabilize the side.
At this point, how important is the prevention of fires?
Regardless of the fact that it was a malicious or culpable fire, a theme on which the police will have to investigate, the prevention remain fundamental To create the conditions to be able to manage fires that develop organized. This means breaking the continuity of the fuel with parafuoco bands Before the fires occur, but also having teams ready for action, given that an identified fire is more manageable.
In short, the prevention is precisely this: plan the woods To make them safer in case of fire and make the operations more sustainable, avoiding that the fires go beyond the so -called “Extinction threshold“, which is created when the bonfires reach such an intensity that each intervention no longer has any effectiveness and the only alternative is to let the fire runs out on its own. It is precisely what happened in 2017 on Vesuvius and that, also thanks to the timely intervention, it did not reply this time.
But in these prevention activities it is also essential to participation and the active involvement of citizens: This morning, for example, the helicopter that flocked the area recorded 3 new fire points far from the fire, noting people who were turning on pruning residues in full fire emergency. This means that the risk of culpable fires It is around the corner and most of the population has a poor knowledge of the theme. Fires, of course, cannot be stopped or reset, but can be reduced by sensitizing the population: for this reason, the Primaurora association has started the project “Us and fires“In schools, with the aim of sensitizing even the little ones and making them understand that in the dynamics of fires, citizens are also the protagonists.
