In Sicily, 50 fires a day, but prevention is still lacking.

Sicily is burning. Agricultural land is burning: by 2025, 13,000 hectares of 17,000 hectares will be destroyed. With widespread losses in orchards, arable land, olive groves, vineyards, and livestock, Sicily has become the country with the highest number of areas destroyed in Italy. Three hundred million euros have gone up in smoke in just ten years, with consequences for livestock farming, rural areas, tourism, and the environmental heritage.

Sicily is burning, with the splendid nature reserves of the Zingaro Reserve and the Monte Cofano protected natural area, both in the province of Trapani, the countryside around Calatafimi, the Sughereta di Niscemi, Piana degli Albanesi, the Etna area between Biancavilla and Ragalna, Cava Grande del Cassibile, and Calatino all catching fire.

Watching our reserves burn is like witnessing the erasure of our roots. A wound that's difficult to heal.

According to the Sicilian Regional Forestry Corps' "Astuto" information system, since the firefighting campaign began on May 15, a total of 3,757 fires have been recorded in Sicily from May to July 2025—roughly 50 fires per day. They affected 4,977 hectares of forested area and 26,423 hectares of unforested area.

During the most critical days, between July 24 and 26, 4,843 reports were received at Forestry Corps number 1515: more than 12% of the 40,158 reports handled since the start of the campaign by the nine provincial operations rooms of the departmental inspectorates. Ground operations involved 4,700 forestry workers battling the blazes. Since the start of the campaign, the regional air rescue team, with its ten helicopters, has carried out 567 missions, with 12,966 launches. In some cases, depending on availability, the national air fleet has also been added, carrying out 270 interventions. Most of the fires affected abandoned land, overgrown with invasive, dry, and stubble-filled grassy vegetation. These are often privately owned lands, whose owners have failed to comply with municipal cleanup orders. The affected areas will be examined and delineated through specific technical surveys by the Forestry Corps to update the fire registry.

A foretold wound, which every year at this time of year brings us face to face with a familiar narrative, against which it seems little can be done . At the end of 2024, one year after the devastating Sicilian fire season of 2023, the WWF recorded over 15,000 hectares of forest destroyed by fire, equivalent to 73% of the fires of the same category nationwide. Nothing new on the horizon.

"Unfortunately, the situation remains the same. Indeed ," says Pietro Ciulla , regional delegate for WWF Italy and the Sicily Region , " our conviction that there is a truly worrying punctuality is further strengthened. The 'forest fire prevention system' continues to be a golden opportunity to use, in a constant climate of emergency, huge economic resources, which bring with them patronage, waste, and welfare, without any planning or control. The interests surrounding the fire prevention system, in the total absence of effective and methodical counter-policies by law enforcement and the judiciary, have remained unchanged. According to a survey by the State Forestry Corps, malicious causes of fires account for 78%, dubious causes largely attributable to malicious causes account for 20%, and other causes account for 2%. Therefore, given the prevalent malicious component of fires, it is appropriate to make a clear distinction between ordinary causes of fires and extraordinary causes, which are difficult to discuss. Once again, however, we are witnessing the fact that the Region, over the last year, has addressed the problem, let's say from its sole perspective, which is that of spending: strengthening Civil Protection, surrounding itself with even more volunteers and cooperatives, and focusing on passive defense against fires .

"With the new firefighting campaign, together with the Forestry Corps Command, we have introduced two important innovations," explains Giuseppa Savarino , Regional Councillor for Land and Environment. "Namely, the Plan for the Fight and Prevention of Fires in Regional State Forestry and Agricultural Areas, developed with the Department of Agriculture, and the Program of Interventions to Safeguard Biodiversity in Protected Natural Areas, proposed by my Department's Environment Department. Furthermore, this year, a new Regional Operations Room has been operational, bringing together Civil Protection with its volunteers, the Forestry Corps, and the Fire Brigade. Within this structure, there is also a dedicated unit that coordinates all interventions by the regional firefighting fleet. The Region's commitment on this front is therefore constant, and we believe that only through teamwork, discussion, and collaboration is it possible to act effectively and promptly. For this reason, for several years now, we have been encouraging the involvement of public and private entities and free associations through the signing of memoranda of understanding and agreements."

Such prevention should push Sicily off the podium for fires. According to the WWF, 70% of the fires that broke out in 2023 were concentrated on the island, which ranks last in terms of forested area (8%) . This is despite the fact that it has a forestry workforce—13,469 temporary forestry workers and 1,238 permanent forestry workers, economically equivalent to 10,000 permanent forestry workers—equal to approximately a third of the entire national forestry workforce.

"We're right back where we started," says Bonetta Dell'Oglio , president of Isola Fenice , an association founded out of a desire to see Sicily recover after the fires that began on July 25, 2023. "Let's just say that, aside from the operations room, providing 92 pickup trucks to volunteer associations linked to the Civil Protection hasn't achieved much. I say this because they're small vehicles, unable to intervene promptly, and in effect, they apply very little prevention. Our association has fostered a network of organizations that are truly local and know what we're talking about, especially since many of us have lost or had our homes severely damaged. To address this type of emergency, we're raising funds through crowdfunding . As Isola Fenice, we're pursuing this project because we believe the judiciary should also begin to force the Region, for example, to recognize parks and reserves, rather than abandoning them to their own devices."

"Just look at the devastation that occurred in the Sughereta di Niscemi, in the province of Calanissetta, as well as in Zingaro, near Trapani. But I could make a very long list for the whole of Sicily. In eastern Sicily," Dell'Oglio continues, "another disaster, Piazza Armerina is out of the question. A situation that is no longer acceptable. We are also taking action as a permanent observatory on environmental disasters . I repeat, the reserves and parks, established three years ago, are now completely abandoned, so we will consult Europe because there is no point in repressive measures after the damage has been done, but we must do everything possible to preserve at all costs an island that, let us remember, is the most biodiverse in Europe . A primacy that we risk losing in terms of flora, but also fauna."

"The planning, financial programming, and implementation of active firefighting at the provincial level," Councilor Savarino concludes, "are carried out annually by the nine departmental Forestry inspectorates responsible for the various territories, through the drafting of Provincial Operational Plans. These are planning documents for the organization and interventions prepared by March 31st each year. In addition to indicating the regulatory references and types of fires, they describe the provincial territory in detail, listing all wooded areas and those subject to hydrogeological restrictions for each municipality. Furthermore, the protected natural areas and sites of the Natura 2000 Network , the main instrument of the European Union policy for the conservation of biodiversity , present in the provincial territories are listed and described. The document also lists the organization of the AIB service and its operational structures, the location of the fire lookout towers, the natural and artificial reservoirs for the rapid water supply of the aircraft used in active combat, and the overall number of human resources at all levels employed during the firefighting campaign.

The network of associations that has decided to take matters into their own hands to say "enough" to the usual damage counting intends to continue this monitoring. It promises to be a summer full of initiatives throughout the region, led by the growing number of environmental associations. It's a promise they intend to keep without hesitation.

The photos refer to the fires that broke out in San Vito Lo Capo, in the province of Trapani, and are by Michele Cernigliaro

Tags:
• environment
• prevention
• Sicily