Mom, daughter drive through thick smoke, flames to escape Italian wildfire in terrifying video
SICILY, Italy – A terrifying video from Sicily, Italy, shows the nail-biting moments a mother and daughter were surrounded by smoke and flames from a raging wildfire while driving Monday.
The video, which was recorded by Centamore Natalia Mariagrazia, showed how perilous the conditions were during their drive from Syracuse to their home in Carlentini on the island’s southeastern coast.
In a translated message, Mariagrazia told Storyful that while they did see smoke off in the distance while they were driving, they didn’t think the situation was dangerous enough to prevent them from continuing their journey.
“Going further on, we noticed that the situation was only going to get worse,” she told Storyful. “But we could not stop anymore.”
She said that her mother bravely handled the situation while driving through the thick smoke and flames, but when they emerged from the inferno, she immediately began to cry as “the terror was thankfully over.”
Local officials said three people were killed by the wildfires. Local news reports indicated that parts of the road were shut down because of the fire but have since been reopened.
Several wildfires have been reported across Europe, including in Spain, Italy and Greece. Several people have been killed.
Greek officials placed the entire island of Rhodes under a state of emergency because of fires, and two pilots were killed earlier this week when their firefighting airplane crashed into a hillside while working to extinguish flames.
Thousands of residents and tourists were told to flee, and an investigation is underway to determine what caused fires across the country.
Officials with Vigili del Fuoco, Italy’s National Fire and Rescue Service, said firefighters have responded to more than 1,600 fires in three days between fires burning in Sicily, Calabria and Puglia. More than 5,400 firefighters are responding to blazes in southern Italy during temperatures in the triple digits.