Fire in Medulin consumes 15 boats, reports istra24.hr. Police reported at around 4 a.m. that a fire had broken out in the town harbor of Medulin; an hour later, several explosions were reportedly heard.
Medulin (Medolino in Italian) is an idyllic village in Croatia. The well-known seaside resort is located on the southern tip of Istria. The town has a beautifully indented, long coastline and is surrounded by a chain of small islands. Today, Medulin is a well-known tourist center.
Medulin is also home to the Medulin Marina, which is popular with sports skippers and has 85 moorings, a crane and boat hire. Several yacht charter companies also operate their bases here. “Small and cozy, surrounded by turquoise sea and pine trees, you’ll feel relaxed and happy as soon as you arrive!”, the marina’s website advertises.
However, the idyllic and cozy atmosphere in the town harbour of Medulin suddenly came to an end at around four o’clock this morning (15.5.). As istra24.hr reported a few hours ago, the police announced that there had been a fire in the Medulin marina. Seven boats had gone up in flames, the number was later revised upwards to 15. Firefighters were on site to fight the fire.
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20 boats & yachts burned, some have already sunk
At 6.15am, the police reported that the number of boats on fire had risen again – to 20. Some of the boats had already sunk.
“I woke up this morning at around 5 a.m. to an explosion,” istra24.hr quoted Mladen Kolenko, who had commented on the accident on his Facebook page. “At first I thought that nothing had broken in my house, but only a few minutes later I heard a second explosion.”
Kolenko got up and saw “thick, black smoke from the balcony”, which “stretched from the entrance to the Medulin campsite to Premantura, Pomer and beyond”.
The fire could have been caused by an exploding gas cylinder
Istra24.hr speculated that the fire could have been “either a gas cylinder or a container on a boat nearby” that exploded. Although no sirens were heard, firefighters were spotted on the scene shortly after the explosion and tried to contain the fire immediately. Fifteen firefighters with four vehicles from the Pula public fire department were on the scene at the end.
Slobodnadalmacija.hr reported a short time later, referring to information from HRT, that the fire in the town harbor of Medulin had engulfed a total of 30 boats. The fire had still not been extinguished several hours after it broke out.
There were dramatic scenes: “There were explosions, people jumping into the sea,” writes slobodnadalmacija.hr. It was a stroke of luck that the bura was blowing when the fire broke out, because a “southerly wind would have spread the fire to even more boats and probably affected all the ships moored in the port of Medulin”, slobodnadalmacija.hr quotes Ivica Rojnić, commander of the Pula public fire department.
The burning boats were separated from the pontoon to prevent the fire from spreading
During the fire, the burning boats were separated from the floating pontoon and caught and extinguished with the help of the port authority boats; the containment and prevention of the spread of pollution is underway, Rojnić continued afterwards.
As early as 2021, there was a fire in Medulin town harbour due to refueling with the engine running, which destroyed six boats at the time. The damage at the time was in the high five-digit and six-digit range.
There was also no personal injury in the 2021 fire. However, what happened afterwards was unpleasant: the burnt-out wrecks were left lying on the shore, apparently no one felt responsible for salvaging and removing them, not even the municipal company responsible for Medulin town harbor, Buza.
