Italy's Mount Vesuvius, a popular tourist destination, closes over wildfire
The national fire service said it had 12 teams on the ground and six Canadair planes fighting the blaze, which has torn through the national park in southern Italy since Friday. The park where a volcanic eruption buried the ancient city of Pompeii in 79 A.D. is a major tourist destination.
"The fire-fighting continues ceaselessly on three fronts", the Campania Region said in a statement.
Authorities said the fires are largely on the slopes of the Mount Somma side of Vesuvius, which is characterized by its dense vegetation.
The army created a fire break and reinforcement firefighters were brought in from other areas of Italy, while onsite teams used drones to better monitor the spread of the fire, the region and fire service said.
The smoke from the fire could be seen from the Pompeii archeological site, which was buried by Vesuvius' eruption during Roman times. The site, however, remained open to tourists.
The park's head, Raffaele de Luca, said the area affected covered some 500 hectares, or over 1,235 acres.
"For safety reasons and to facilitate firefighting and cleanup operations in the affected areas, all activities along the Vesuvius National Park trail network are suspended until further notice," the park said in a statement Saturday.
Nearly 620,000 people visited the crater of the active volcano in 2024, according to the park.
Experts say European countries are becoming ever more vulnerable to wildfires due to intensifying summer heatwaves linked to global warming. Parts of the continent had recorded its hottest June in recent history.
The abnormally hot weather exposed millions of Europeans to high heat stress with temperatures in June more typical of July and August, said Samantha Burgess of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
Last week, France battled what authorities called the country's largest wildfire in decades. About 1,400 firefighters were deployed Saturday in France's southern Aude region to prevent it from reigniting, the Associated Press reported. High temperatures in the coming days are expected to complicate firefighters' efforts.
On Mount Vesuvius, "the firefighting efforts are particularly delicate due to both the weather conditions -- high temperatures and wind -- and the pine needles, which contribute to the spread of the flames," said Italo Giulivo, head of the region's civil protection department.
Italy's biggest agricultural association, Coldiretti, said the fires were "an enormous disaster" for vineyards and farms in an area well known for its wine, apricots and tomatoes.
The local prosecutors' office has opened an investigation into the origin of the fires.
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