MESSINA – The Mazzarrà Sant’Andrea landfill, in the Messina area, has continued to burn since yesterday afternoon. The extinguishing operations continued all night, but the attempt to create a fire break zone, using mechanical shovels and bulldozers, was unsuccessful because it was too dangerous. “The flames – explains the mayor of Mazzarrà Sant’Andrea, Carmelo Navarra – for the moment are being tackled with jets of water and foam that reach 70 meters, thanks to two vehicles that arrived during the night, one of the firefighters and the another from the Milazzo refinery. While waiting for the Canadairs and helicopters to return, earth is also being thrown on the abandoned waste to suffocate the flames.”
Yesterday the direction of the wind carried the smoke downstream from the town centre, today there is no wind. ARPA placed a detector to monitor the air quality in the municipality of Terme Vigliatore, towards which the smoke was directed. The mayor says that there are at least two triggers: one on the border with the Mazzarrà stream and the other upstream from the landfill “and this leaves no doubt about the malicious nature of the fire”. The fire started from the dry Mazzarrà stream and then spread. The flames first reached the brushwood present in the old landfill, now unused, and from there to the active one, covered by a tarpaulin which went up in flames.
