2023-07-24 16:38:52
With raging wildfires on parts of the Greek islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia leading to the country’s biggest-ever evacuation effort, many people planning travel in southern Europe are concerned about the risks amid unusually high summer temperatures.
Italy is known to suffer numerous wildfires during its hot, dry summers and 2022 was a particularly bad year, with the number of blazes in the country around three times higher than average amid a series of intense heatwaves.
READ ALSO: Should you reconsider travel to Italy during a heatwave?
Experts warn that dry turf and scorching heat favours the spread of fires, some of which begin spontaneously, though the majority are caused by human actions.
With southern Italy still in the grip of an intense and prolonged heatwave, there were as many as 70 active wildfires on Sunday in the Calabria region.
Major fires were reported in the provinces of Reggio Calabria and Cosenza, killing animals and damaging buildings.
Burnt areas due to wildfires in Italy and neighbouring countries on Monday, July 24th. Map: European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
In Sicily, arsonists have been blamed for widespread blazes in the past week and the region’s civil protection agency issued a red alert warning for wildfires in the provinces of Palermo, Trapani and Enna as temperatures exceeded 45C in many areas on Monday.
In the southern region of Puglia, no major fires were reported in recent days. However there were dozens of active blazes on Monday afternoon according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), and local safety authorities warned that the fire season was just getting started.
The number of wildfires reported in the southern region has been rising steadily since June, and the current heatwave “brought with it, as always happens, an intensification of fires in the region, facilitated by the very high temperatures and the lack of rainfall,” regional civil protection committee head Maurizio Bruno told local media.
So far, summer 2023 has not been the most destructive in terms of forest fires in Italy, which may come as a surprise given the recent blistering temperatures.
Some 13,200 hectares of land in Italy have been burnt up by 52 major fires this year, according to EFFIS data.
The figure is, as yet, far lower than that in 2022, when a total of 58,750 hectares were burnt by blazes.
And in 2021, 659 major fires claimed 150,550 hectares, making it the second-worst year for wildfires in Italian history after 2007.
The latest data about weekly fires confirm this year’s trend as Italy has seen below-average numbers of weekly fires since mid-May.
Burnt items after a deadly wildfire near Nuoro, central Sardinia, in July 2009. (Photo by MASSIMO LOCCI / AFP)
Abundant rainfall during the spring months played a central role in the lower number of wildfires this summer, especially in the south of the country, which saw a surplus of “120 millimetres of rain on average” in May alone, according to Gherardo Chirici, director of forest geomatics at the University of Florence.
“Green vegetation” and “damp ground” have so far helped prevent the spread of wildfires, he says, but this could change in August.
“Wildfire season will surely come,” says Chirico, “though we hope it will remain below the averages of past years”.
“According to our models, the trend registered so far cannot be fully reversed.”
If the trend continues, Italy could see thousands of hectares of land spared from destruction as well as lower CO2 emissions.
The amount of CO2 produced by wildfires in the country stood at 0.4 megatonnes (Mt) at the end of June – that’s 1.8 Mt less than the total for 2022 (2.2 Mt).
#badly #Italy #affected #wildfires #summer