by Antonella Marchionni
Two hectares of land between fields and woods on fire. And to put out the vast fire that broke out yesterday morning around 9 in Carignano, near the Gazza road, a major intervention by the firefighters of Pesaro and Fano and the ‘canadair’ of the Marche Region was necessary.
The flames, according to initial reconstructions, would have originated from the muffler of a parked car. The heat could have triggered the combustion and in a few moments the brushwood caught fire: due to the wind, it spread to the surrounding land. “I heard a crackling sound,” says Rossella Omiccioli, 54, a lawyer with a passion for beekeeping who was there to take care of her hives. “I parked my Peugeot near my bees and they told me that the combustion could have originated from the muffler of my car. I turned around and saw that there was smoke, about a square meter. Instinctively I grabbed the blanket I use for honey supers and tried to put out the small fire with that. In a fraction of a second, with a gust of wind, the fire spread to about fifteen square meters and continued to advance. I took a huge risk considering that I was wearing a beekeeping suit which is made of plastic. At that point I got into my car and fled, in the meantime I called the firefighters who arrived very quickly.”
And six firefighters’ vehicles rushed to the scene, thirteen men, crews from Pesaro and Fano and even civil protection volunteers. The Canadair took flight and about ten jets of water were needed before the fire was put out, which came dangerously close to a house under renovation. No one was intoxicated and no damage was reported to nearby structures.
“A great fear – says Tommaso Di Sante, owner of the Di Sante winery located near the area where the fire spread, as well as president of Coldiretti Pesaro-Urbino -. We saw a thick column of smoke and we feared it could reach us, also considering the wind that was blowing and the drought. The brushwood, in fact, is very dry and therefore easily flammable”. And in the afternoon some embers started to burn again but the firefighters who, for several hours, continued to guard the area managed to control the flames, nipping in the bud the outbreak of a new fire.
