Roma almost entirely in ash, from Eur to San Pietro, passing through the Aventine, the Colosseum, the Palatine, the Capitoline Hill. A thrilling photograph, which translates the possible outcome of the fire who have devastated and traveled theItalian no later than last year. In the 2023 107.231 hectares of our peninsula burned, as certified by the latest report drawn up by Joint Research Centre (Jrc) e European Commission. A territory as vast as almost the entire city of Rome (128.500 hectares). Or, if we want to make another comparison, as if Venice had burned in the fire at the same time as Milan, Turin, Florence, Genoa, Naples, adding up their surface area.
In total they were 1.378 fires in Italy last year. Ukraine aside, where the vastness of the fires (226.421 hectares) is weighed down by those caused by the ongoing war, Italy in Europe is second after Greece in terms of territory burned by flames (175.759 hectares) and accompanied on the podium by Spain (101.184 hectares).
Fires in 2023 in Italy, a third of agricultural land gone up in smoke
The European report highlights a detail: over 30 thousand hectares that went up in smoke concern Natura2000 sites, i.e. protected areas that need to be protected due to their particularity and fragility.
And the damage inevitably affects almost all of them agricultural sector. Of the 107.231 hectares lost causes fires, more than a third (36,3%) are recorded precisely on agricultural land, for a loss of 39.354 hectares which will not be able to produce. The multiplication of violent meteorological events in 2023 combined with fires - whether malicious or not - caused damage amounting to 6 billion in crops and infrastructure, Coldiretti certified in its final balance sheet for the year.
Some come from the community executive suggestions to prevent fires. One way may be to employ nature-based solutions such as vegetation management or through a greater preparazione using early warning systems for forest fires or be ready to deploy firefighting resources made available by the European Union through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
The suggestions apply to everyone, but in particular to our country. Because if it is true that in total in the EU in 2023 an area equal to approximately double the size of Luxembourg went up in flames - over half a million hectares, 504.002 - it is also true that a fifth of the devastated area was in Italy alone.