Sadly, more fires

I had the whole day planned out today. I would go for a morning walk, a little more than a 5K. Then, I would go to the beach with my cousin Valeria before heading back with her to have pranzo (lunch) with Zia (my Zia is her Nonna). Valeria cooked a delicious pasta meal with eggs and zucchini, and turkey cutlets with roasted peppers. She also made a delicious tiramisu. As of 2:30, everything was going according to plan. I went back to the beach around 3:30, had an espresso and an Illy Crema (a frozen coffee treat), and planned to watch some “Ted Lasso” on Apple TV+. The plan going forward was to return home at 7, shower, write some of my new script idea, and then have some friends of the family over at 9. Easy peasy. Around 4:15 I went for a swim in the Adriatic Sea. It was so calm and clear today, like a swimming pool. After a couple of minutes, I sensed some shade come over me even though it was a virtually cloudless sky. I look and see smoke plumes rising high into the air coming from two main spots close to each other. I got out of the water after a few minutes and sat down to begin watching TV. But as I sat there facing the smoke, I began to think what direction it was coming from and realized it had to be close to our house. I quickly contacted my cousin, and noticed she had already contacted me. This is where my plan ended. I packed up my towels and electronics, and trekked back home, stopping for a couple of photos. As I drew closer and closer to the condo, I could audibly hear the fires crackling. Closer and closer I kept walking, all of the people out in the streets and balconies watching, then I was finally there. At the end of my driveway was one of the fires. I dropped off my beach bag and went to see the fire commotion. After a couple of minutes a woman was asking for bottles of water for the people who were fighting the fire. I grabbed her a bottle of water, and grabbed an old bucket from my house, and joined a group of citizens helping to fight the fire with hoses and buckets of water. Many times the Vigili dei Fuochi (Fire Fighters) were running out of water. They have no hydrants here in town, and the trucks are a third the size of our average sized fire trucks. Together we helped save the carwash across from Zia’s window, and put out plenty of hotspots. The professionals would wave us off at times, telling us it was too dangerous. Then they’d run out of water and let us attack the fire. It was a great group effort and we fought it as a group for more than 4 hours. At this moment, the fire near here is still smoldering, however, near the center of town I can see smoke plumes still rising. The entire hillside behind my house is burned up. They called in air support, but it didn’t drop any water near us. There was a fire surrounding a gas station on the main road, and they were dropping water there for obvious reasons. No rain for at least a month (my neighbors have been here all of July and August so far and not a drop), strong winds, and high temperatures (near 97 today) seems to be a recipe for disaster. Plus, on Sundays we have a lot of day trippers without houses to go to, as well as families with patios, who use charcoal grills and let the ash smolder. With the winds as high as they were today the fire spread like, well, wildfire. An eventful day that I’ll remember for a long time to come.