TO a few months after the fire that hit the area of via Elorina on February 16th, tamed through the massive intervention of fire brigade teams from various cities in south-eastern Sicily and which caused, for a few days, a dense toxic cloud due to the combustion of plastic debris and tires abandoned in the area for years, the day before yesterday the exact same situation was repeated in the area of the former Archimede tourist port, right behind the municipal police headquarters!
Also in this case a black cloud was unleashed, certainly toxic, which covered the city for a few hours. This happened despite the City Council having indicated to the Administration with a Resolution approved on February 21st, the day after the fire in via Elorina, precise actions useful for the prevention of fires in the areas surrounding the city, including: “promptly activate enforcement of damages in the event of non-compliance”.. against owners who have not complied with the cleaning and weeding of their land”.
The City Council also asked Of “strengthen the municipal civil protection office in order to fulfill all the tasks necessary for fire prevention” and to set up a technical table for the coordination of firefighting operations with His Excellency the Prefect, the Forestry Corps, the firefighters, the Free municipal consortium, volunteer firefighting teams, environmental police”.
The Mayor later in the Ordinance n° 6 of April 2024 entitled: “Prevention and active fight against fires. Obligations and prohibitions for the year 2024” accepting the Council’s requests reiterated the obligation (see point 4) for owners, tenants, tenants, managers, administrators of buildings, managers of tourist, artisanal and commercial structures, (…) to carry out the necessary passive defense prevention works fires, consisting of cleaning, reclamation and weeding of uncultivated areas, at one’s own expense and at the expense of land invaded by vegetation, by removing any element or condition that could represent a source of fire ignition with an absolute prohibition on abandoning the aforementioned mound areas of any kind.
In light of this Resolution and this Ordinance, the Syracuse Fire Prevention Committee would like to know from the municipal administration what has been done? Has monitoring of compliance with the Ordinance been set up? Were there any fines and fines? Were the good intentions followed?
What we read about yesterday’s fire is none other than (to paraphrase a well-known novel) the “news of an announced fire”. The dangerous situation in that area within the city which always remains at very high fire risk, it had been reported several times and was known to everyone. The aforementioned Committee, created to combat the phenomenon of fires in our territory and to implement, in collaboration with the relevant bodies, the actions necessary for the prevention of fires, asks:
- That the Administration intervenes at the bankruptcy trusteeship of the former Archimede tourist port, sanctioning it and also reporting to the Public Prosecutor’s Office the civil and criminal liability of the existing illegal landfill;
- That be ordered the cleaning of the area, in order to defuse what could be the next toxic bomb to the detriment of the citizens;
- that provision should also be made fence off the area making it inaccessible, warning the curator to comply with all urgency.
The Committee also requests that as per the resolution of the City Council, the municipal civil protection office is strengthened and the technical table meets urgently coordinated by the Prefect with all the actors responsible for preventing and extinguishing fires.
June 15, 2024 | 12.20pm
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