The Cagliari firefighters returned to their headquarters around 5:00 this morning, 13 hours after the fire started yesterday afternoon in San Gregorio.
The last intervention was on a small house that had been virtually destroyed by fire and rendered uninhabitable. Only the owner, a pensioner, was home at the time of the fire. A neighbor came to his aid and helped him out. The man is now staying with relatives.
Other houses were damaged and even touched by the fire near the historic village of San Gregorio in the Sinnai area.
Forestry workers and volunteers are still on site to secure the site.
The damage is being assessed: the fire on the hill has devastated and reduced hundreds of hectares of forest and Mediterranean scrub, pines, and other tall trees to a graveyard. The damage is extensive. Canadair aircraft and helicopters (six aircraft responded, including one from the Italian Air Force) have dumped tons of seawater onto the blaze.
The flames appear to have started on the Vecchia Orientale Sarda road , near San Paolo. The Forestry Corps will investigate.
What is certain is that they quickly reached San Gregorio, a hamlet of Sinnai, damaging several homes and coming dangerously close to others and the Casa Monsignor Angioni, a retirement home run by nuns. The building was evacuated as a precaution, and the nuns and their guests were taken away in a van and escorted by local police . Dozens of residents in the area were evacuated as a precaution.
The Orientale road was also closed as a precaution and to facilitate the movement of emergency vehicles. It was a terrible day. The area relived the tragedy of a few years ago when, also along the Vecchia Orientale road, a fire had struck the Burranca area, burning the undergrowth and tall trees.