Screamingpiercesthroughthenight. My eyes snap open, disorientated. Am I dreaming? The banging on my door indicates I’m fully awake. Bonnie sits up, wide-eyed. I listen as thunderous steps race around the villa.
“Allegra, get up,” Rosa screams.
I’m out of the bed in a flash, yanking open the door. Rosa is dressed already. “What’s happening?”
“Fire,” she pants. “In the western field.”
Fuck! Fires are always a threat in the summer. Usually, by the time we get to harvesting, the likelihood of them happening is low. The temperatures dip to a safe level, but this year we’ve had an unseasonably hot summer. A heatwave has gripped most of Europe for months.
We’ve never had a fire before and I’m momentarily stunned. We can’t afford to lose the crops. It will devastate our earnings and will take years to recover. One field is manageable but if the fire spreads, we’re in trouble.
“Allegra!” Rosa shouts.
“Take whoever you need to fight the fire. I want the surrounding fields doused with as much water as possible to prevent it from spreading. I’ll be right there.”
Rosa takes off running. Sprinting to my closet, I dress as fast as I can. Bonnie is still looking confused. I forget she can’t understand Italian.
“There’s a fire. I need to go and help put it out. Stay here, okay.”
“Allegra, I can help.”
“Please, Bonnie. I can’t be worrying about you when I need to focus. Please stay here.” My words aren’t meant to hurt her, but they are true. My sole focus has to be on the fire, and it would be impossible if I knew Bonnie was close by—close to danger.
“Okay. I’ll stay with Kelley and Pete.”
“Thank you,” I say, kissing her on the lips.
Racing out of my room, I spot Kelley. “She’s in there. Get Pete and stick together. Do not come outside. The air will be thick with smoke.”
She nods and sets off to my room.
It’s organised chaos. We’ve trained for this. The risk is too high not to have a plan should the worst happen. It’s unfortunate the field ablaze is the one furthest from the villa. It takes precious minutes to get there and every second counts.
The airisfilled with smoke. I jump on a quad bike and rev the throttle. There’s an orange glow lighting up the night sky. “Toni, warn the neighbouring farms,” I call over the noise of flames and people screaming directives.
He nods and takes his own quad west towards our closest neighbour. Each member of the vineyard team is trained to use the water hoses. I’m happy to see they are already fighting the fire with a precision usually only found in professional firefighters. All around me, water rains down as they try to soak the unaffected fields.
Rosa barks orders like a drill sergeant. Jumping off my quad, I race to the closest hose. I can’t see how much of the field is burning, and until the fire is out, I won’t know the true extent of the damage.
“We’ve covered the surrounding acreage with all the stored water,” Rosa shouts next to me.
“We’re making headway,” I call back, nodding to the blaze. It’s still roaring, but the constant assault of water is finally dampening the beast. Hope soars we’ve averted catastrophe.
An uptick of wind slows our progression. The fire dances to the east, and for a heart-stopping moment, I think it’s about to skip into the next field, regardless of our efforts.
More people arrive. Several are from neighbouring farms. They’ve brought mobile water tanks and begin unloading on the still-burning vines. The fire hisses and spits, but it finally dies down. There’s a collective cheer as the last flame is extinguished.
Leaning over with my hands on my thighs, I take a second to breathe. It’s difficult with the stench of smoke still prominent, but I think I might pass out if I don’t get some oxygen in my lungs.
“Keep watering,” I order after I’m done with my mini-breakdown. “We can’t afford to let it ignite again. I want someone on every corner of this field until we are certain there will be no flare-ups.”
Everyone scuttles around me, preparing to keep working. Lorenzo charges up in his silk dressing gown. “Fuck,” he curses. “God damn it. Is everyone okay?”
“All safe. No casualties. We can’t say that for this section of the land, though.”
“After all these years. I can’t believe it happened,” he says, shaking his head. “You did well to train them, Allegra. This would have been so much worse otherwise.”
Yes, it would have.
