Tourists, skiers are getting too close to Mount Etna's lava, officials warn

Eager tourists are flocking to Mount Etna in Sicily to watch impressive eruptions on the volcano, but local officials are now asking them to knock it off, saying their looky-loo ways are hampering rescue services and the emergency response.

Mount Etna’s first 2025 eruption intensified over the weekend, producing substantial lava flows that cut through the mountain’s deep snowpack and prompted thousands of tourists to climb up the Sicilian slope to get a better look.

In a post to Facebook on Sunday, Sicily’s head of regional civil protection, Salvo Cocina, described how narrow streets leading to the volcano have been packed with parked cars and traffic jams, making it almost impossible for emergency vehicles to access the site.

He also wrote that four people, none of whom were seriously injured, were rescued on Sunday. And in the overnight hours between Sunday and Monday, other people were rescued, including a woman who reportedly had a “panic attack,” all of whom were not properly equipped or prepared for the excursion.

The mayor of Adrano, one of the communities closest to the latest eruption, even issued an order over the weekend prohibiting anyone from getting within 500 metres of the lava flow.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the order has been largely ignored. Hundreds of videos have been posted to social media, reports The Guardian, showing curious onlookers getting within centimetres of the lava flows — and even some people skiing alongside one large molten river.

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“I’ve seen many photos and videos of people dangerously close to the front, even skiing,” Carlo Caputo, the mayor of nearby town Belpasso, told The Guardian. “Though visually striking, it exposes them to serious risks, as the lava, interacting with the snow, can instantly vapourize it and, with the thermal energy released, may violently hurl fragments or rocks.”

Mount Etna is known to erupt frequently, and as of Feb. 11, a new fissure had opened up on the southwest Bocca Nuova crater, bringing multiple lava flows to the surface. By Monday, ash emissions from the crater had become so thick that air traffic around Sicily was disrupted and dozens of flights from Catania Airport diverted.

As of Monday, the lava had advanced about four kilometres down the slope, Italian news outlet Il Post reports.

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