Tourists evacuated from the beaches have been loaded onto Coast Guard boats. Coast Guard vessels have been picking up tourists along the coastal road between Peschici and Vieste, on the Gargano Peninsula , where a large fire has been raging since late morning, even reaching the coastal areas .
The flames, fanned by strong winds, first spread to a rural area, Pile Fraballe, where hectares of Mediterranean scrub and Aleppo pines went up in smoke. They then spread down the valley toward the coast, from Difesa di Manaccora to Zaiana Bay, causing panic among tourists at the numerous campsites along the coastal strip between Peschici and Vieste.
In the rural area, there are about ten houses that were not touched by the flames, while many tourists and swimmers abandoned the beaches and flocked to boats - six Coast Guard vessels, three from the Guardia di Finanza, as well as a dozen private vehicles - to reach the nearby port of Vieste, where the Municipality has set up municipal meeting points to provide assistance and reception .
"About 400 tourists, about a hundred on boats, others independently by car, and still others by Gargano Railways bus, reached Vieste," said Mayor Giuseppe Nobiletti. "They are currently staying in two gymnasiums at two schools, but it's likely that some will soon return to their holiday villages, as the flames have moved."
According to the mayor of Peschici, Luigi d'Arenzo, the fires that broke out in the coastal pine forests of his city were "malicious, also because they were started in multiple places."
"The Gargano is reliving a nightmare it experienced in 2007. A vast fire is destroying the pine forest that had begun to grow again over the past 20 years, between Peschici and Vieste," commented Vincenzo Scarcia Germano, president of the Gargano Railways, who has provided buses to transport evacuated tourists.
(Unioneonline)