The charcoal men of Serra San Bruno

A little story of the last charcoal men in the south of Italy.

This work was carried out in August 2020 during a trip to Calabria.
Serra San Bruno is located in the province of Vibo Valentia and it is rather known for the Certosa di Santo Stefano del Bosco, the first Carthusian monastery in Italy and second in Europe after that of Grenoble, France.
Here is one of the few (privately owned) charcoal pits still existing in Italy, the only one in the south, where these men, following a tradition that has been handed down for centuries, transform wood into high quality coal.
I got up early to get to the first light of the morning. They were there from 4.00 to "dismantle" a charcoal pit whose carbonization process had finished the day before. The charcoal burner burns for 4 days and in these days it is always monitored (day and night); rain or sun, heat or cold, wind or heat, they do not stop, everything must be followed for their safety and the surrounding forest and the guarantee that the transformation process takes place successfully (the fire inside must always be constant ).
Not an easy, tiring, scrupulous and unenviable job, but these men, these guys, do it with pride and passion, passing the job, whenever possible, from father to son, from family to family.
Every now and then they take a break, indulge in a chat and a cigarette, then go on to prepare the stack or take it apart, amidst fumes of smoke and black dust that make the view pleasantly infernal to those who observe the scene.