BOLZANO. «The electricity went out, the sky outside is black with smoke from the fires. They told me: pack your suitcase and get ready to go. I have it here, next to the bed, ready.” Natalia Bonifacci she said to herself: what should I do? For now the documents and some underwear. And the rest? «I can’t take the house away. If the fire comes I will lose everything and amen…”. It happened to his friends not far away: house, car, goods in smoke. Locked in the house, for now she prevents herself and her 7-year-old son Leo from breathing foul air. It is the Los Angeles that burns, like the Rome of the Caesars.
Two hundred thousand already displaced, dead and injured, the flames that previously licked the front towards the desert and the canyons have reached the sea, have attacked the internal neighborhoods, Hollywood and its hills, the densely inhabited hills, destroying the actors’ villas but also the condominiums of ordinary people.
«It looks like a horror movie»
Natalia Bonifacci, from Bolzano, was here in Alto Adige, with her parents, Analucia and Giancarlo, until a couple of days ago. Everyone gathered for their nephew’s birthday. Then the return to California, to Los Angeles, where he has worked in fashion for years. «Fires come every now and then – he says now with a voice full of concern – but never like this, never so many and everywhere. It’s devastation, it’s like being in a horror film.”
«Surrounded by flames»
Renato Calabriahowever, he has just left Los Angeles again. He comes to Italy for a few days for work. He is one of the best known cosmetic surgeons, he introduced the new technology of the “vertical facelift”, Hollywood with stars and starlets comes and goes from his laboratory in Bel Air. Bolzanino, high school at Torricelli, medicine in Padua, parents who lived in the centre, he says: «The studio and house over there are surrounded, the fire is closing in from the south and the north, it is now invading Malibu and Pacific Palisades up to Beverly Hills. What have we done? My children and I have filled the trunks of the car and are waiting, suitcases packed and fully packed. I heard them a few minutes ago.” Acquaintances came to his house the other evening. They called: «Can we come and eat something? The house is in ruins and the restaurants are all closed.”
The controversies
Calabria then reports very harsh controversies in the city: the mayor is accused of being caught traveling in Africa while his Los Angeles was on fire. Even Biden, who canceled his visit to Italy to go to California, is cited as the cause of the fact that the rescue helicopters could not get up for hours due to presidential safety protocols. Instead, people make do, especially the richest: «Murdoch stopped the flames using fire-repellent technologies, others like him have even hired teams of private firefighters to protect themselves», reveals Renato Calabria. But the fire spares neither the stars, nor the billionaires nor the others. And the problems pile up.
“The lady who helps me for a few hours is in trouble: the supermarket where she works – says Natalia Bonifacci – is destroyed.” Problems are everywhere. “An app – he continues – keeps us informed on the situation, they say to fill up and try to move away, but I found huge queues at the petrol stations and the highways are clogged”.
The devastated city
Natalia Bonifacci and Renato Calabria remember that it hasn’t rained for weeks, the air was dry and the wind that started to pick up had never been so strong. «In flight – says Calabria – I saw the city destroyed, it looked like napalm had passed through it like in Vietnam. From above the neighborhoods today reminded me of Pompeii…” The latest data speaks of thousands of houses and buildings destroyed, without even the walls anymore. The civil protection, a few hours ago, called it “the worst fire in the history of California”. And the wind still doesn’t drop. P.CA.