Better leave your cell phone and PDA at home if you’re planning to visit Canneto di Caronia in Sicily.

The gate at the entrance to this tiny Sicilian village has come off its hinges and swings in the wind as cats wander into homes abandoned after a series of mystery fires.

Spontaneous fires started in mid-January in the town of Canneto di Caronia, in about 20 houses. After a brief respite last month, the almost daily fires have flared up again—even though electricity to the village was cut off.

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Three-legged instruments to monitor geomagnetic, meteorological, electromagnetic and electrostatic indicators sit in apartments and next to lemon trees in the gardens. Colored markings on the street indicate the presence of volcano experts.

Police ruled out a possible prankster or pyromaniac after they saw wires burst into flames.

The hypotheses now range from a buildup of electrical energy caused by grounding wires running off the railway to a rare “natural phenomenon” in which surges of electricity rise from the earth’s core.

The fires have even consumed unplugged lamps and an entire apartment. Black scorch marks still scar the apartment walls.

Italy’s big utility, Enel, cut off electricity to the town and hooked it up to a generator—but that caught fire as well.

More recently, cellular phones and cars have also been acting up, with lock and alarm systems being set off without any apparent reason.

Given the fact that unpowered equipment as well as battery powered items are having problems, it would seem to point to an unusually high EM field in the area.  Those all sound like symptoms of current being induced into the equipment from an outside source.

Given that Sicily is a volcanically active area, I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be the answer.  Volcanoes have been known to generate huge electrical charges (although this is during eruptions).

Here is another site that examines some possible theories and has some observations about the area.

Link via Slashdot.