Mellieħa’s iconic eucalyptus burns twice in one weekend as ‘zombie fire’ reignites – watch the dramatic footage

Watch: Towering eucalyptus bursts into flames again in the dead of night – Mellieħa’s skyline briefly turned into a living fireball as embers from Saturday’s controlled burn re-ignited, sending tongues of orange 15 metres up the trunk and sparking a frantic call-out for the Malta Fire and Rescue Service.

The drama began around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, when residents of Triq il-Wied heard a low crackle that quickly escalated into the familiar roar of bushfire. Footage captured by 19-year-old local videographer Luke Borg shows the ancient eucalyptus – a landmark known to hikers as “il-Ħolma” after the way its branches frame sunsets over Għadira Bay – erupting like a giant torch against the black silhouette of Mellieħa Ridge. Within minutes, two fire engines from the Mellieħa station and a water-bowser from Cirkewwa were screaming up the narrow lane, headlights bouncing off dry-stone walls built by farmers long before package holidays ever reached Malta’s northern tip.

Firefighters managed to douse the blaze by 3 a.m., but not before the 150-year-old tree lost its crown and a section of bark peeled away in glowing strips. No injuries were reported, and the adjacent terraced fields of late-season tomatoes escaped unscathed. Yet for Mellieħa, a village that still celebrates the feast of Our Lady of the Grotto with petard-fuelled pageantry and village-band marches, the incident reopened a deeper wound: the creeping anxiety that even the island’s green lungs are no longer safe from climate-driven wildfire.

“This tree shaded my nannu when he herded goats here in the 1950s,” said Maria Bezzina, 62, watching the last wisps of smoke curl into the dawn. “Seeing it burn twice in one weekend feels like losing part of our collective memory.” Mellieħa’s older generation still speaks of the ridge as a wartime lookout, where British servicemen huddled in pillboxes scanning for Italian aircraft. Today, those same bunkers serve as Instagram backdrops, while the eucalyptus was a living monument to continuity – until now.

Sunday’s re-ignition is a textbook example of “zombie fires”, embers that smoulder unseen in root systems or dry leaf litter, then flare when night breezes pick up. Malta recorded its driest January-to-April period since 1922, and the ridge’s clay soil acts like pottery in the kiln. Minister for the Environment Miriam Dalli confirmed that an inquiry will examine whether Saturday’s initial controlled burn – carried out by the Environment and Resources Authority to clear invasive reeds – followed proper protocols. Fuel loads were reportedly low, but eucalyptus oil is notorious for its volatility; a single spark can travel on warm katabatic winds funnelled down the valley.

Local NGOs wasted no time turning grief into action. By 9 a.m., volunteers from Nature Trust-FEE and the Mellieħa Scout Group were already laying irrigation hoses around neighbouring carob and olive trees to raise soil moisture. “We’ll propose a community fire-watch rota,” said scout leader Kurt Micallef, whose teens spent Easter Monday replanting Aleppo pines after the 2021 Għajn Tuffieħa blaze. “If the state can’t police every inch of countryside, we’ll do it ourselves.”

Tourism stakeholders are also watching nervously. Mellieħa’s northern coastal trail, part of the EU-funded Majjistral Walk, skirts just 200 metres from the scorched site. British walking-tour operator Ramblers Malta has already received two cancellations for next week’s sunset hike. “Clients come for that fragrant eucalyptus canopy,” said operations manager Claire Whitworth. “Losing it chips away at the very identity of the north.”

Yet resilience is woven into Mellieħa’s DNA. By lunchtime, a local band club had set up trestle tables laden with ftira and Kinnie for firefighters, while parish priest Fr Noel Vassallo blessed the blackened trunk and led a short prayer for “the lungs of our land.” Stalls at the village festa this weekend will sell commemorative candles whose proceeds will fund new native saplings.

As the sun dipped over Għadira on Sunday evening, only a charred silhouette remained of il-Ħolma. But already, tiny green shoots of caper plants were visible at its base – stubborn Maltese flora reminding everyone that, even after fire, life finds a way.