In depth: fires on the Gargano, and how they hit a peak-season coast
What actually burned, and where?
The Gargano is the wooded spur above Foggia. Aleppo pine and scrub run from the plateau down to the sand, the villages sit on cliffs above small bays, and there is one road along the north coast with a single inland alternative behind it.
On the morning of Sunday 26 July a fire started at Pile Fraballe, inland of Peschici, and a hard sirocco pushed it north. It burned through the pines past Difesa di Manaccora to the shoreline around Baia Zaiana and Calalunga, where the campsites and holiday villages are.
It was not a one-off. On Friday 31 July three fires burned at once: in the pinewood behind Vieste, in the Caravella area above the accommodation strip near the Lungomare Europa; at Coppa di Mezzo near San Marco in Lamis, where an agriturismo was evacuated and crews worked around a threatened gas tank; and on the Monte Tudisco slopes above Cagnano Varano, on ground that had burned days earlier. Ground burned once in a hot summer goes again easily.
Was Peschici really evacuated by sea, and how many people?
It did. The coast guard put vessels off Peschici, joined by finance police boats and private craft, and lifted swimmers and campers off the beaches because the road behind them was shut. Peschici opened the primary school on Via Montesanto; two school gyms at Vieste took those brought round by sea.
The number is where coverage went wrong. Several national outlets on 26 July ran headlines of more than a thousand tourists displaced. ANSA, quoting the mayor of Peschici, put it at around four hundred moved from Peschici and Vieste, about a hundred of them by boat. Other reporting described hundreds cleared from beaches and campsites, and hundreds more in Molise the same afternoon. Those accounts do not reconcile, most likely because the larger figure sums separate incidents. We are not publishing a number.
What is solid: a substantial evacuation took place at Peschici on 26 July, part of it by sea because the land route was cut, and the mayor said afterwards that tourists were back in their accommodation within days. No homes or tourist structures were reported lost.
Which roads matter here, and what does a closure do to your day?
Three numbers cover almost everything here.
The SP 52 is the litoranea, the coast road between Peschici and Vieste. It closed on 26 July while the fire burned to the shore. It carries the whole north-coast holiday strip, so closing it does not add minutes, it removes the link between the two resort towns.
The SS 89 Garganica is the inland alternative, and the closure pushed everything onto it. Buses were rerouted along it on 26 July, running inland until past the Santa Maria stop, with the Manaccore stops suspended. If you rely on the bus, that is the failure mode: not a cancelled bus, but your stop vanishing from the route.
The SS 693 dei Laghi di Lesina e Varano runs past the lagoons; Anas closed a stretch at Cagnano Varano on 26 July, reported as roughly kilometre 27 to 30.
All reopened quickly, and traffic across the Gargano was reported normal on 27 July. The 31 July fires produced no reported closures on any of them. There is no SS 52 on the Gargano; if you see that number it is an error for the SP 52.
What happened in Molise, and why it stranded train passengers
The 26 July fires were not confined to Puglia. That afternoon, fire between Termoli and Campomarino reached the corridor everything travelling down the Adriatic uses.
Both the SS 16 Adriatica and the Adriatic main line closed for safety, and because road and railway run close together there, losing both severed the coastal route between Abruzzo and Puglia. Two trains were held at Termoli, a Frecciarossa and an Intercity, with several hundred passengers waiting for hours while volunteers staffed the station and replacement buses were arranged. Trains on the Pescara–Bari line began moving again from early evening once the track had been inspected, and the SS 16 reopened the same day. Campsites and beach clubs on that stretch were cleared, and residents of the Villa San Gerardo care home were moved to a parish building.
Arriving by train, you are exposed less to fire than to a single rail corridor that can shut at no notice.
Can you still get to the Tremiti islands, the Foresta Umbra and the beaches?
The Tremiti islands sit offshore and were not affected. Summer sailings run from Rodi Garganico, Peschici, Vieste and Termoli, plus a seasonal Manfredonia link between 25 July and 25 August, and no disruption to those crossings was reported during either fire. The exposure is reaching the port, not the crossing: if the coast road is shut on the morning of your sailing, take the inland route and start earlier.
Beaches reopen fast. Bays get cleared for smoke and radiant heat well before flames arrive, and handed back once the air clears.
The Foresta Umbra, the old beech forest in the middle of the peninsula, is the one to check rather than assume. It sits inside the national park, trails and forest roads can shut on high-risk days at short notice, and a visitor centre or your hotel will know before any website. Across Puglia, a regional decree put the region into its highest state of forest fire danger from 15 June to 15 September: no outdoor fires, barbecues, fireworks or spark-throwing machinery, with fines attached.
What does the burnt ground mean for the rest of the year?
The fires took woodland, not towns, so what you lose is scenery and walking, not a holiday. The pine above the Peschici bays and behind Vieste is why this coast looks the way it does, and it will be black this year and thin for years after.
The aftermath risk nobody mentions in August: burned slopes above a coast road shed mud, ash and stone when the rain comes, and the Gargano's rain arrives in short violent bursts. Expect short-notice closures on the SP 52 and the roads down to the bays through the autumn, with no fire anywhere.
One loose thread: prosecutors in Foggia opened a file into the Peschici fire after the mayor said publicly it was lit in several places at once. An investigation, not a finding.