On Sunday night there was a fire on the mountain above my town - Mosor.
I personally did not hear about the fire that night and did not pay much attention to it, because every summer is burning on that mountain. In the morning when I went to work I went to a nearby grocery store to buy something to eat and hear how the saleswomen told her colleague that it had burnt her entire olive grove in the village at the foot of the mountain.
When I sat in the car I heard something that frozen blood in the veins. At the local radio that I always listen to, at that moment they released a snapshot of a man who lurks:
"Please save us! My house will burn, I can not get firefighters, fire is in front of me, we will all burn !!!"
Then the leaders of the radio called firefighters and help because he could not get them.
Later it was rumored that some man from the village died of the infarct.
When I got to work and raised my head I had something to see. My town was covered with black cloudy smoke.
I've never seen this before. As time went by, the situation was worse. The field news was worse and worse. The situation did not stop and the fire was getting bigger and bigger. About 12 am he had already caught up all the villages around the mountains of Mosor - Sitno Gornje, Sitno Donje, Lolići ... Some houses were already burning.
The city began to smell the smoke.
My boyfriend is from Žrnovnica. It is 5-10min away from the center of Split. Several minutes from the sea. No one could imagine the fire would come down but it was...
He went about 3 PM in the afternoon to go there to see what the situation was. He could not go out until tomorrow. At one point when he called me about 5 PM, he told me only briefly that the situation is catastrophic, that the fire at an abnormal speed approaches and that all houses will burn. His friend has a house just above him, and in one conversation he said that he could not see his house because of smoke, but it seems that it is burning.
These are some of the pictures he's been sending during the afternoon.
The city was terrified.
There were too few firefighters, they were stretched in all directions and there was too little of them. At that point, they were already in the field for 24 hours and it seemed that there will be at least that much more.
Help from all Croatian cities was sent.
Local club fans gathered and started fighting with a firewall. Supporters of the largest opposition club in Croatia sat in the car and came to defend the houses. Everyone was in one place and the thing was even worse and worse.
About 11 PM the news came: fire came into town! Neighborhoods are burning!
The pump station is burning, the substation is burning, there is no electricity, water is discharged all over the city, and the fire is approaching the greatest danger, which is the garbage dump.
Roads that are leading out of the city are blocked, people stand in the columns.
There are evacuated people from neighborhoods on the edge of town and from two shopping centers. Living panic..!
Most firefighters then switched to a place near the garbage dump because it was the biggest danger that the whole city will fly into the air.
After maybe an hour, it was reported that the city was defeated but the other side had a huge firecracker threatening to the seafront location - Strožanac.
God, where is the end?!
Throughout the night, firefighters from all over the country, armies, volunteers and others fought with that fire and succeeded in defending most homes. Sadly, much has turned into ash.
The olive groves, orchards, vineyards, and other work that people invested for years had disappeared overnight and seemed to never exist.
Many blame the authorities for sending the aid too late, that the military should go out on the field a lot earlier ... maybe, in fact that is true, but now it's over. We can not get back the time, we have to deal with what brought that to us. Help how much we can, be united and go further. It is always necessary to rely on oneself and on their neighbors, because in this case the people themselves and with their own hands help the immediate success of defending their homes.
I can't stop thinking about beautiful mountain above my town which is now a big blacksmit.
And this apocalypse ... I hope this did not happen again to anyone.
Most of these photos are not mine because mine are mostly blurry.