During the morning of today 28 June, in the Blue Hall of the Bourbon Prison, the Civil Protection, Civil Defense and Public Rescue Coordination Area of the Avellino Prefecture directed by the Vice-Prefect Elisabetta De Felice, organized a meeting on the topic of Prevention and combat to forest fires.
The meeting was attended by the Mayors and Presidents of the Mountain Communities of the province, the Park Authorities and the Land Reclamation Consortia, as well as representatives of the Police, the Highway Police and the Fire Brigade, as well as the managers of the main roads.
The meeting, which opened and concluded with a speech by the Prefect of Avellino Rossana Riflesso, saw the participation of the various actors of the civil protection system. Dr. Claudio Campobasso of the regional Civil Protection, the Provincial Commander of the Forest Carabinieri Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Silei and the Commander of the Avellino Fire Brigade Eng. Mario Bellizzi.
Commander Bellizzi’s speech opened with a brief illustration of the “self-combustion” phenomenon, clarifying that this latitude of ours is a rather unlikely phenomenon. He continued by specifying that if a forest fire occurs, it is most likely caused by man, either through a voluntary or accidental activity. Another key concept on the subject was then clarified, the timing of the phenomenon which occurs mainly in summer, when the higher atmospheric temperature does not determine the triggering of the forest fire, but rather considerably facilitates its very rapid propagation.
The intervention of the Commander of the Fire Brigade was mainly focused on the illustration of the provincial technical organizational plan of the Fire Brigade for the summer period, of serious danger due to forest fires (from 4 July to 26 August), also following the recent agreement on the subject stipulated with the Campania Region. In fact, in addition to the organizational structure of ordinary urgent technical relief, operating 24 hours a day with two teams and a support vehicle from the Avellino headquarters and a team for each branch office (Montella, Lioni, Bisaccia and Grottaminarda), there is a team and a DOS (Extinguishing Operations Director) who deal exclusively with forest fires, and who operate at the Montella headquarters; a dedicated operator at the provincial operations room in via Zigarelli and a Fire Brigade official at the provincial operations room of the Campania Region, in order to create a “direct line” between the Region and the Fire Brigade.
The Eng. Bellizzi concluded his speech by recalling a conference organized some time ago by one of the Mayors present in the room, the Mayor of Montacuto, on the topic of the depopulation of internal areas, to provide a further, if not the main cause of the outbreak and the extent of the spread of forest fires, i.e. the lack of management and control of green areas due precisely to the drastic demographic decline and abandonment of these areas which make up the majority of our territory.
