The fire this time

It was like some sort of surreal dream. I was napping, or I think I was napping, and I heard in my conscious ear the 'thump thump thump' or helicopter rotors. If Radar O'Rielly had been nearby, I would have heard him shout 'Incoming'. But the thumping stopped, and I drifted back to sleep in what must have been three or five seconds. And then it returned, and then it stopped, and then I fell asleep, only to be awakened again.

The weekend was busy, with all sorts of people coming (at last) to spend the (rest of the ) summer here. The parking lot was full, and most of the apartments were as well. In the air was the smell of excitement, summer fun, swimming, burning olive branches, burning grass, thump thump thump.

I finally got up and went outside. Capo San Marco was ablaze, or had been ablaze. The thumping had been from the helicopter going from the fire to the sea, dipping its snorkel in the water, pumping water into its twin cisterns, and then dumping the water on the fire. By the time I was awake enough to get my camera out and take the picture above, the excitement was over. This is the helicopter, pulling up its snorkel, after its last refilling, before it turns to go home to Agrigento and fight other brush fires.

Actually, as the brush fires around here go, this was not a bad one. We have seen the Pompieri here every year to put out raging brush fires near the apartment complex. This certainly is the fire season, with several huge fires on the mainland, and in other places in Sicily. The difference in this fire, and the reason for the helicopter, is that the fire was near the lighthouse, and I don't think they wanted Capo San Marco to go back to being known as the place ships were sunk on the rocks.

Anyway, the excitement was over, and I was able to go back to sleep and dream of the first time Fran and I cam to Sicily, when her niece Amanda picked us up at the airport, and drove us south to Naples through the burning fields and smoke along the autostrade. It was almost seven years ago to the day, and what a wild ride those seven years have been.