Sunday 11 July 1999
FIRE REPLACES FLOOD AS VENICE'S GREATEST WORRY
By Chris Endean in Rome
FIRE, not flooding, poses the greatest threat to the future of Venice on the eve of the Millennium.
The city's fire chief has warned that a shortage of manpower means that fire fighters are struggling to cope with the return of an old Venetian peril: an inferno sweeping through the city's wooden houses.
Fighting fires among the canals that criss-cross Venice's 117 islands is labour-intensive. With many canals too shallow for the brigade's boats, Venetian fire fighters are often forced to reach burning buildings on foot, as their predecessors did 200 years ago, laboriously dragging their hoses, ladders and pumps across the lagoon's bridges.
Over the past 10 years, the number of serious fires in Venice has trebled, stretching the city's 150-strong fire brigade to the limit. Alfio Pini is commander of the lagoon's 200-year-old force at the Cafoscari fire station, off the Grand Canal, he said: "We need a greater presence of firemen in the city to guarantee its preservation."
When the Fenice, Venice's opera house, burnt to the ground in 1996, firemen had to be called on throughout the Veneto region to reinforce the Venice brigade. Last month, only the bravery of one fireman, who climbed on to the rooftop of a blazing building in the Canareggio district to douse surrounding walls with water, stopped flames spreading to the world's oldest Jewish ghetto.
Mara Vianello, trade union spokesman for the Venetian fire fighters, said that fewer than 20 firemen were permanently on call at the Cafoscari, much less than the 30 that the union has demanded. Ms Vianello said: "We have three helicopters, but not enough pilots to fly them."
Last year, 50 firemen took early retirement and their substitutes are still learning a difficult trade. Ms Vianello said: "Driving a fire-boat is not like driving a fire truck on terra ferma. You have no cabin so there is no protection from the ice-cold wind of a Venetian winter."
Nor from the danger of the lagoon's low bridges, as several seriously injured fire fighters who forgot to duck can testify. It is the very restoration work designed to preserve Venice that has turned it into a giant fire hazard. Mr Pini said: "Venice is like one huge building site. Labourers are working on churches, palaces and monuments, and that means a big fire risk."
Clearly concerned, the city council supported Mr Pini's calls for assistance this month by opening Venice's first fresh-water fire hydrants in three zones of the city. Previously, seawater had to be pumped direct from the canals, often damaging the same buildings that the firemen were supposed to be saving. But the interior ministry in Rome, ultimately responsible for Italy's national fire brigade, has so far delivered no more than two modern boats.
Better boats are important. But no technology can beat greater manpower when it comes to fighting fires in Venice, said Mr Pini. In the 1996 Venice fire, the firemen had to pump water direct from the Grand Canal, 400 yards away, because the canals surrounding the opera house were being cleaned.
"When the siren rings, they look like the Keystone Cops going out on patrol," says one resident, whose palazzo looks down on Cafoscari, where the fire station's open doors reveal the red hulls of four boats moored at their jetties. Putting out a fire in Venice carries unique risks. Many buildings are inaccessible from the canal and firemen are skilled in the art of walking catlike across rooftops.
A Venetian fireman also needs to learn the dying art of boat building; the brigade's workshop is constantly shortening and narrowing its fleet to fit into the canals.
When coal and wood were the Venetian Republic's chief source of energy, the city lived in permanent fear of flame. In 1149, an inferno tore through the heart of Venice, leaving 23 churches in ashes. Fires damaged the Doges Palace, the official residence of the chief magistrate of the republic.
To safeguard the city, lookouts were placed in St Mark's tower, while churches would ring their bells to raise the alarm. Venetian ambassadors were under orders to scan Europe for breakthroughs in fire-fighting equipment, with Britain often relied on to supply the latest in pumps.
Tough penalties, including prison sentences, were imposed for starting a fire. After one blaze, Venice's entire population of sail-makers was exiled to the island of Murano.
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Pavarotti backs rebuilding of Venice theatre after fire
1996
By Anna Somers Cocks in Turin and Robert Fox
THE Venice authorities yesterday surveyed the ruins of their main opera house, La Fenice, reduced to a shell by fire on Monday night.
But even as the world of opera mourned the destruction of one of its finest theatres, plans were under way to rebuild it within two or three years.
The mayor, Prof Massimo Cacciari, has opened a special fund and has secured the backing of Luciano Pavarotti. The British Venice in Peril Fund has launched its own appeal to support the fund.
It had long been feared that such a disaster could befall the city, due to delays in the many schemes to restore Venice and its canal system.
The recent implementation of a canal cleaning programme in the area around La Fenice may have seriously delayed the firemen on Monday night. They had to pump water from the Grand Canal because the canals near the theatre and its piazza had been drained for repair.
"They managed to save all the buildings in the square, including the Athenaeum of Venice, the two bars and the San Fantin church"
"The firemen found they were holding empty hoses, as they could not pump water from nearby," said Lady Clark, of the Venice in Peril Fund, who watched the fire eat the core of the building in under four hours. Witnesses to the fire were full of praise for the firemen, who had to contend with the ferocious north wind, the bora, fanning the flames.
Countess Foscari Foscalo, 79, a descendant of doges, said: "They were wonderful because they went into the building and ensured that the flames did not spread to the piazza beyond.
"They managed to save all the buildings in the square, including the Athenaeum of Venice, the two bars and the San Fantin church."
Alfio Pini, head of the fire service, had feared a serious blaze in the heart of the old city ever since he took up his post four years ago. If a very big fire took hold, he said, his men would be no more able to stop it than were the citizens of London in 1666. "All we shall be able to do is weep. There are no fire hydrants and so the only water at high pressure is what we can pump from the canals."
The authorities have started cleaning only a handful of the 170 canals that are in urgent need of dredging and restoration. The Fenice district was one of five recently declared beyond the reach of the fire service's boats.
One of the first canals to be drained is behind the theatre itself. The process involves damming and emptying the canal, so it was impossible to get fire floats to the scene on Monday.
Mr Pini believes the municipality must install hydrants across the old city, where many of the buildings are some distance from water. "Until we get fire hydrants, they will be my great worry. The buildings are timber framed, of course. And they are also tall.
"We have no hydraulic ladders because we would not be able to get them down the narrow canals and alleys, so our firemen have to climb on to the surrounding roofs, as they did on Monday night." The Vigili del Fuoco (Fire Guards) have only eight fire boats for the whole lagoon governed by the Venice authorities and the service is 120 under strength.
In the 19th century no fewer than five of Verdi's operas were first performed there, among them Rigoletto and La Traviata
La Fenice has risen from the ashes before, like the mythical bird, the Phoenix of Arabia, from which it takes its name.
It opened in 1792, and although the outside of the building was 19th century - it was rebuilt in two years after a fire in 1836 - the atmosphere inside remained distinctly 18th century, the era of Casanova and Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's most famous librettist.
The side rooms were used as meeting places for clandestine political clubs, and the sport of gamblers and rakes. Students would meet for informal concerts, held in the foyer and bars if no other space was available.
Fittingly, Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress received its first performance in the theatre 40 years ago. The premiere of Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw followed a few years later.
In the 19th century no fewer than five of Verdi's operas were first performed there, among them Rigoletto and La Traviata.
Performers and critics mourned the passing of a unique part of opera history. "It was fabulously beautiful," said Michael Kennedy, The Daily Telegraph's music critic, "and the acoustics were marvellous. Voices came out of the stage in a way they do not anywhere else in the world."
From the London Telegraph at www.telegraph.co.uk
