Three days after a blaze fuelled by burning olive prunings tore through Tuscan woodland on Monte Faete, firefighters have made significant progress. However, conditions remain volatile and two new fires have broken out nearby.
A vast fire burning on Monte Faete, between the provinces of Pisa and Lucca, is approximately 70% contained as of Friday afternoon, the Tuscany Region has announced. The goal during the night and into Saturday is full containment.
It is the first genuinely encouraging news since the blaze broke out on Tuesday, and a testament to the extraordinary effort of dozens of ground teams, aerial crews and drone operators who have worked without pause through days of turbulent, wind-driven conditions. But those conditions have not yet relented, and officials are being careful not to declare the emergency over.
The same statement that carried news of the containment progress came with a series of warnings that make clear the situation remains precarious.
710 hectares burned
The scale of destruction has been partially revised downward following more precise surveys conducted by forest firefighters. The Tuscany Region now estimates the area affected at approximately 710 hectares, compared to the 800 hectares initially reported. The earlier figure was prepared, officials explained, as a preliminary operational estimate designed to enable the rapid deployment of teams across the affected area during the most critical phases of the emergency.
Even at 710 hectares, the fire ranks among the most serious Tuscany has seen in recent years, and the revised figure offers little comfort to the 3,500 residents displaced from Asciano, Santa Maria del Giudice and surrounding communities. Nor to those whose buildings have been lost.
Containment figures do not tell the whole story. Within the fire’s perimeter, officials are paying particular attention to numerous areas that have not been fully burned or are only partially burned. These pockets are susceptible to reactivation even from moderate wind, capable of generating new plumes of smoke and fire jumps that could carry the blaze outside the established perimeter and into unaffected terrain.
