Burnt area (area percorsa dal fuoco)

The restriction is set out in article 10 of law 353 of 2000 on forest fires and covers woodland and pasture that fire has passed over. For at least 15 years they cannot be given a use other than the one they had before the fire. For 10 years buildings and structures for housing and business are banned, unless the planning scheme in force before the fire already provided for them; in municipalities without a general plan, any building is banned. In burnt woodland, grazing and hunting are also banned for 10 years.

One rule concerns buyers directly: deeds of sale of land and property in these areas signed within 15 years of the fire must expressly mention the restriction, or the deed is void.

Every municipality keeps a register of burnt areas (catasto delle aree percorse dal fuoco), updated every year; the new list is posted on the municipal notice board (albo pretorio) for 30 days. This register is what counts legally. The report uses the fire perimeters detected by the European satellite system EFFIS: it says whether the plot lies inside a burnt area, in which year and how far away the nearest one is, and in those cases it names the certificate to request from the municipality. The satellite sees fires from about 30 hectares upwards, and smaller ones only since 2018. Method in Landscape, wildfires and noise.