In the midst of the firefighting campaign, the National Autonomous Forestry Union threatens a state of unrest. At the basis of the protest is the request for immediate solutions "by the top management of Forestas regarding the working conditions of the units operating on the fire in Sardinia: too many flaws in the safety parameters - according to the union - starting from the number of operators per single team , judged insufficient, up to the high average age of the workers which, according to the SNAF representatives, is frighteningly close to sixty years old».

A complaint that comes at a rather delicate moment for Sardinia in the grip of fires.

«Already on 27 July we had sent a request for an urgent table with the top management of Forestas to re-discuss the safety parameters of the nuclei – explains the union representative Gianvito Marongiu -. We are the invisibles of the fire and, even if we operate daily on the front line, we don't exist for the public opinion except when we leave our skins».

The reference is to the recent disappearance of a forestry driver in the territorial service of Lanusei, who died on 25 July after a non-stop field day on the fire front. This tragedy, says the document, demonstrated "in the worst way that the operations of the AIB units made up of a driver and a single operator are exposed to very high risks".

This, according to the SNAF, is "one of the critical points on which it is necessary to remedy promptly: the excessive load of the extinguishing and reclamation operations weighs on only two units per team, it follows that the solitary removal of a single operator from the vehicle barrel, in the extinguishing phases, in the drafting and use of the hose line, without being assisted by other colleagues - asserts the note - is excessively risky".

«The operators - reiterates Mauro Puddu, territorial secretary of Ogliastra - spend their work shifts with temperatures that daily exceed thirty-five degrees, often without suitable premises, without air conditioning and, sometimes, with obsolete means and dilapidated lookouts, as they are sometimes dilapidated the waiting stations of the operative nuclei on the ground, made up almost of barracks. Despite our request for an urgent meeting with the general management of Forestas, in which we have exposed all the critical issues, a date for a discussion table has not yet been set".