Fire!
Our paradize is not perfect. Suddenly, on Monday morning, people gather at the beach. They gesticulate wildly and keep pointing in one particular direction. From far away, we hear the sound of sirens.
There is a simple explanation. The forest is on fire. This time, it is rather close to where we stay.
We, too, go to the beach. And indeed, not far away, we can see the flames marching up the hill. The speed is enormous. There is a steep wind – inbound. It pushes the flames further on.
With great speed, the fires spread.
We wonder what we should do. The mood gets scary. High clouds of different colours – from dark black to light yellos – multiply. These colourful flags are carried landwards by the wind. The sun sparkles even more golden than usual.
Then the noisy fire-fighting airplanes arrive. This is the end of the quiet paradize. We witness a scary but also impressive drama. Behind us, we can see dark clouds across the sky. The planes dip into the ocean, fill their containers with water and then spread it over the fire.
Later, there are also helicopters. One of them is huge and equipped with a water basket, the other looks special and like it is made of nothing but a container and a fire-fighting gun.
On this day, fire-fighting engines are on their way with blue lights blaring all over the place on Mani. We heard the noise of the helicopters all through Tuesday – today, Wednesday, everything is back to quiet and peaceful.
Only when I swim along the beach towards where the fire was, I can see the now bleak mountain and smell the now extinguished fire.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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