The Fire This Time

Summer is the time of fires in Italy, including Sicily. Most things, despite what this picture might imply, turn brown as they dry out in the hot sun. After a very wet spring, there was a lot of green stuff to dry out, but dry out it did. Perfect for fires.

This fire occurred about a mile from my house, along the road into town. At first, it was brown smoke billowing out toward the sea, and then the smoke turned angry and black. It was getting near houses and parked cars. The fire department were doing their best, but they needed help.
Help came first in the form of a helicopter with a large bucket. He would dump water from the bucket onto the fire, then fly out over the sea to pick up more water, return within a minute or so, and drop another bucket of water. He made a lot of progress in putting out the fire, but even more help was needed.
The help came in the form of another helicopter, this one with a large tank on board, and a snorkel with which to refill the tank. He would take turns with the first helicopter dropping their loads of water where the men on the ground said they needed it most.

His first drop included a beautiful violet colored fire retardant, but unfortunately I did not get a shot of that one, although you can see a bit of the remaining color if you look closely.

After about ten more water drops by each helicopter, the fire was out, but the day was not over for the fire fighter. They had other fires to go to, as all of the fire fighting helicopters were used on this day, as well as some fire fighting Canadair planes. It is unusual to need two on one fire, but I was able to watch them work from my front terrace.

So remember, only we can prevent brush fires, even though it is fun to watch the helicopters picking up water and dumping it on the flames.