Perhaps a stub at the origin of the fire in the Erbaluce vineyard

piverone

Owned by the parish and given to the management of the Cantina della Serra, the small half-hectare vineyard which burned down last Friday is the one used for extra didactic activities by the schools of Piverone. The lower secondary school brings the children there to familiarize them with the viticulture of Erbaluce, the love for the land and nature in general.

A plot of 40-50 quintals of grapes per year, a small production. «Before Covid we went with the mayor to also collect an award in Rome, for this. Now seeing it like this, blackened by the fire, my heart cries ”: Ivo Actis Dana, from Cantina della Serra, estimates that two thousand square meters of four thousand square meters have gone up in smoke, half. It is thought that the fire was triggered by a butt thrown on the side of the road to Viverone which runs alongside the field. The fraud seems to be excluded, no one has filed a complaint. «Given the heat, the agronomist advised us to keep the grass on the ground, at the foot of the vines, so as to retain moisture. But the grass is dry for this year’s weather and when it was licked by the fire it burned quickly. Unfortunately, this is the vintage ». The harvest will start already in a couple of weeks. But a drop in production of 20-25% is estimated. «The heat has put the vines under stress, the grains are half the size of last year». Hay, forage, other productions almost eliminated from what experts have already labeled as the coolest summer in the coming years.

Meanwhile, in the woods of Valchiusella, checks continue. The Canavese Forestry Consortium, which associates 14 municipalities in the area, is responsible for managing the fire register, a mandatory tool for local authorities to help map the paths traveled by the fire. The goal is to prevent speculators from setting fires, placing 5, 10, 15 year restrictions on the destinations of use of the burnt forest, such as construction practices, hunting, use of pastures. Another fact that photographs the territory is the good accessibility of our local woods, also the result of roads and paths that are kept practicable. In this case we are not talking about fire barriers, but about fire routes that are used by firefighters and Aib to get as close as possible to possible fires in inaccessible areas. It is calculated on the depth of one hundred meters. On the three thousand hectares of forest managed by the Consortium, the road density index is currently equal to 40 linear meters of roads per hectare, more than the national average. –