Italy has seen massive recent increases in both burned areas and the total number of fires, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
The nation had abnormally high numbers throughout its 2023, 2021, 2017, and 2007 wildfire seasons, EFFIS’ annual statistics show. The vast majority of fires and burned area between 2002 and 2023 happened in Sicily, around 77% of which were arson, and new research has uncovered a likely cause: the mafia.
Italian officials in both 2021 and 2023 believed the wildfires were intentionally set, according to a new paper from the University of California, Berkeley, published in the Criminology & Criminal Justice scientific journal. The mayor of Polizzi Generosa said the region was “under attack” in 2021, while Palermo’s mayor said the increase in fires suggested “malicious acts…of absolute wickedness.”
The trend has roots in the history of Southern Italy, according to the paper.
“The setting of intentional wildfire, incendio doloso, in Southern Italy has been tied to vendettas, land disputes, and protests, but recently the mafia has operationalized fire as an accumulation strategy and for territorial control,” the paper said. “Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have estimated that 80% of wildfires were concentrated in regions known to have a powerful mafia presence, while the Anti-Mafia Commission report completed in May 2022 concludes that the fires in Sicily show undeniably that the predatory actions of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra are a continued “condition of ‘power’ and ‘control’ in the territory which . . . go hand in hand with interests of an economic nature.”
The Sicilian Anti-Mafia Commission launched an investigation during 2021’s spike in fires, according to the paper. After 10 months of testimony from numerous officials, the commission concluded that the fires were often set for numerous profit-seeking reasons, including burning land owned by farmers who refused to sell their land to green energy projects.
Numerous fires were also reportedly set during heat waves in the same areas to overwhelm fire crews, who would be forced to choose which fires to put out and which would be left to burn. Another investigation was launched in the wake of 2023’s wildfires that burned on the hillsides surrounding Sicily’s capital city of Palermo, land considered desirable solar and wind installations, rather than rural, inland, and forested regions that were burned in 2021.
“The interviews, tours, conversations, and analysis cited in this work all point to something malicious afoot in the burned landscapes of Sicily,” the paper said. “While the perpetrators may never be caught, looking at Sicily’s perceived, conceived, and lived space—urban and rural—in history and today might help answer the question: What does setting land on fire offer to the power dynamics found in Sicily today, and does it point toward the next, future iteration of the Cosa Nostra?”
Click here to read the full paper.
