SICILY IN FLAMES

43 C here at 1pm and many parts of Sicily are in flames. Three people were killed on Wednesday in a fire at a hotel in the Messina area and today a village in the Palermo area has been evacuated. Some of these fires have been started deliberately and Sicily Guide gives two possible reasons here. As I've mentioned before, I have read that another motive may be the hope of obtaining a job as a firefighter. This would seem to be an erroneous assumption, though, as I read in Corriere today [article unavailable online] that at this time, 70% of Protezione Civile workers are on holiday! Can you believe it, at the most dangerous period of the year? The reason? Good old Italian bureaucracy, of course: these workers' contracts are renewed annually on 31st August and in early August this year 7/10 of them were ordered to take their statutory leave entitlement of 19 days plus 4 bank holidays, so that if their contracts are not renewed they will not have to be paid for holidays they did not take. An almighty row has broken out, with the authorities saying that the workers on leave do not work for the fire service, their colleagues stating that they jolly well do and the public calling for the head of whoever signed this leave law into existence. Meanwhile the President of Italy is calling for a mobilitazione permanente to prevent further tragedies like the one in Patti, Messina.