Italy declares disaster areas as Wildfire death toll rises
Pastor Dale Morgan
Italy declares disaster areas as Wildfire death toll rises*
ROME, July 27 (AFP) Jul 27, 2007
The Italian government on Friday declared the central and southern
regions of the country disaster areas after a week of devastating fires
that have claimed five lives.
The cabinet decision, which frees up funds for compensating victims,
concerns the Campania region around Naples as well as Abruzzo, Calabria,
Apulia, Sicily and Sardinia.
Most of the hundreds of fires had been brought under control by Friday
except for at the Pollino National Park in Calabria and Basilicate, one
of Italy's biggest, which has been ablaze since Sunday.
The environmental group WWF on Friday doubled its estimate of the amount
of protected area that has burned, to 9,000 hectares (22,500 acres).
The group blamed arsonists. "Most of the fires of the past few days have
been of a criminal nature," it said in a statement on Thursday, adding:
"It is well known that fire almost always serves to get rid of trees and
other natural obstacles to make way for new hotels, villas or pastures."
Prosecutors in southern Castrovillari, investigating the Pollino park
fires, also spoke of "premeditated" action and implicated organised crime.
Public safety chief Guido Bertolaso, for his part, accused "many cities"
of failing to update the property records of areas that are burned.
Under Italian law, no new construction is allowed on burned land until
15 years after a fire.
Meanwhile the ANSA news agency said that a 60-year-old man who was
severely burned in fire on Tuesday in the Apulia town of Peschici died
early Friday, bringing the death toll from the fires to five.