Fire devours Croatian Island: "It was apocalyptic" PHOTO

“Some 235 firefighters and 68 vehicles have been on the ground throughout the night. They are responding quickly to any flames or smoke, which have been less intense tonight than on previous evenings, so the situation is more favorable than it was in recent nights,” the Brač Fire Operations Center told Hina overnight.

They added that the fire that broke out on Sunday afternoon in Bol, on the island of Brač, has been extinguished.

Ivan Kovačević, the county fire chief of Split-Dalmatia County, expressed confidence that the fire could begin to subside in the coming days if there is no wind.

“The wildfire on Brač has affected a vast area, and it is estimated to stretch between 35 and 40 kilometers,” Kovačević told Hina.

According to firefighters’ estimates, the fire has so far burned more than 4,000 hectares of forest, low vegetation, and scrubland.

Duboka Bay, near Milna on Brač, where firefighters waged a fierce battle against the flames on Saturday night, looked eerie yesterday. Locals say they will remember for a long time the scenes of the scorched landscape, which has destroyed much of the island’s greenery, Index reports.

“It Was Apocalyptic”

RTL spoke about the battle against the wildfire with Nikola Martinić Dragan, the fire chief of the Supetar Volunteer Fire Department.

“It was quite apocalyptic. At the very beginning, the fire was faster than we were. The flames had surrounded all the buildings ahead of us before we could reach them. That put enormous pressure on us because we had to go through the fire itself to reach the people and get them out. At the same time, we didn’t even know whether anyone was inside. I believe it was apocalyptic for them as well, because it certainly was for us,” the fire chief said.

He emphasized that they were literally defending the houses one by one, and that the situation was particularly dramatic at one resort, where 200 people were trapped inside a hotel at one point. It became a priority because the largest number of people in one location were gathered there.

“We headed there immediately. We found the hotel full of people, and getting them out was a major challenge. The fire had already surrounded us, and we couldn’t simply evacuate them to safety. The only option was to move them into a solid, secure building, seal it properly to keep out the smoke, and then defend the building while they remained inside,” the fire chief explained.