On the sun-warmed shores of Brac Island in Croatia's Adriatic, fire has become the uninvited force reshaping daily life and official priorities alike. A wildfire advancing toward the village of Milna has prompted emergency declarations, as strong Mediterranean winds — the same that draw visitors to this coast — now work against those trying to hold the flames at bay. This moment belongs to a longer story of a region learning, season by season, that the beauty of its summers carries an increasingly volatile shadow.