The Forestry Carabinieri, with a wealth of skills and experience spanning over ten years, as always pay the utmost attention to verifying prevention measures, as the best tool to defend the wooded areas of the territory from the devastating effects of summer fires.
In the province of Brindisi, in particular, the Carabinieri Forestry Group, with the employees of the Brindisi, Ceglie Messapica and Ostuni Units, has planned, starting from 1 June, a widespread patrol of the territory, in particular inside and along the perimeter of forest surfaces, to ascertain any violations. Regional law n. 38 of 2016, in fact, sets May 31st as the deadline for carrying out defense works on the field; therefore, owners and managers of uncultivated and tree-lined land are required to carry out the so-called “precese”, i.e. tillage of the land along the entire perimeter, and for a width of at least 15 metres, in order to clean it of spontaneous herbaceous vegetation, a potential vehicle of flame spread.
The same deadline also applies to the creation of protection strips in pasture land (at least 5 meters wide), along the perimeter of wooded areas, and for the maintenance of “firebreak” avenues within them, as well as for slopes roads and railways, banks of canals and aqueduct routes.
The obligations (with a “precease” of at least 15 meters) also fall on the owners and managers of tourist residential villages and campsites, where, from the potential risk of fires, there is a real danger for the safety of tourists, numerous especially along the coast. Furthermore, according to the same law, from 1 June to 30 September there is a ban on setting fire to plant residues deriving from agricultural activities; the penalties, if paid within 60 days, are equal to 833 euros for failure to create protection strips and 1,600 euros for burning plant residues in the aforementioned period, including stubble after harvesting in cereal land.
It is underlined that, in the event that a forest fire occurs from the outbreak, spreading due to the failure to carry out prevention works, the insolvent owner or manager is liable, by way of fault, for the crime of forest fire, punished, pursuant to the article 423-bis of the penal code, with imprisonment from 2 to 5 years (from 6 to 10 in case of intent), a penalty tightened last summer (particularly harmful at a national level), as a result of the legislative decree of 10 August 2023, n. 105.
Brindisi, despite being the last province of Italy in terms of relative wooded area, nevertheless presents important evidence (with the exceptional presence of cork oaks, unique on the Adriatic side) of what centuries ago was a large forest that covered the plain up to the coast. Right in the territory of the capital there are the protected natural areas of the Preti, Lucci, Santa Teresa and Cerano woods, which in recent years have been the subject of incendiary episodes. However, the timely control action on prevention, carried out by the Forestry Carabinieri, meant that throughout 2023, in Brindisi and the province, only 10 forest fire events were recorded, a notable result that we would still like to see improve in the upcoming summer.
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