No, this is not a eruption of Vesuvius, but a large fire that broke out on the slopes of the volcano. The flames flared up yesterday afternoon, Friday 8 August, in the Terzigno pine forest on the south side of Vesuvius, in the Mount Somma area. During the night, however, the flames extended further, powered by the wind and the warm temperatures and reaching about 1,050 meters.
After sunset, in fact, the operations of the firefighters were interrupted for safety reasons, and then resumed this morning at dawn with the intervention of 4 Canadair and 4 helicopters to tame the flames: according to what reported by the Civil Protection of the Campania Region, due to the fire, more than 2,500 hectares would already be burned, but the extent of the damage could be greater since the stake has not yet been extinct. In the last update of 10, the Civil Protection Department has confirmed the intervention on the site of 6 Canadair in total, requesting citizens and operators the utmost prudence.
After the worsening of the stake, the Civil Protection asked the army’s intervention to support the over 100 rescuers lined up in the area.
The fire and the large column of smoke caused by the flames are also clearly visible by the city of Naples, where in the meantime a permanent table has been activated in the Prefecture to coordinate the rescue and try to face the emergency.
The causes of the stake are not yet clear, even if the authorities are investigating the hypothesis of Dolo: the risk is that the flames compromise the local flora and much of the natural heritage of the Vesuvius National Park.
The episode brought back to the memory of all what happened in 2017, when a violent fire broke out in the Vesuvius National Park had burned most of the high -stem woods that covered the slopes, causing damage for 17 million euros.
From June 15, among other things, an alert of “great danger” for forest fires is active in the Campania region: in less than two months, about 1,060 fires have already broken out. The situation therefore remains updated.
