A tongue OF bright flame flared from the clouds of grey-white smoke pouring upwards and outwards from the hillside village, one of five set on fire by Serb forces on the lower slopes of Cicavica mountain yesterday.
All along the low ridge running parallel with Kosovo's highway from Pristina to Mitrovica, the houses burned as Serb forces embarked on their big push against villages used as bases by the KLA.
The villagers have already fled the week-long bombardment which preceded yesterday's advance, and could only watch from the peaks of Cicavica as their homes burned.
Watching it, parked on the roadside outside the Serb village of Milosevo, you had to pinch yourself. The scene of rolling hills could have been anywhere in Europe except that so much of it was aflame. On the main road columns of Serb trucks, armoured cars and jeeps raced to and fro, along with a few disconsolate bright orange jeeps of international verifiers.
The ceasefire agreement signed last October between NATO and the Serbs they are supposed to verify has long since been forgotten, as has NATO's threat to bomb if fighting resumed. But their largely pointless verification work goes on with, yes, one monitor describing the day's work as "a significant violation of the ceasefire agreement".
But NATO is divided over air strikes, and the Serbs know it. The day began with Serb artillery hammering the villages of Balinice and Osljane. Serb forces then moved into them, spreading out to the rest of the settlements at the base of Cicavica.
Meanwhile, tanks moved into positions on the opposite side of the mountain, at Srbica, ready for what most expect will be a pincer movement to crush rebel forces who have made Cicavica their redoubt.
And not just any tanks. In one more sign of the huge build-up, these are M84s, Serbia's top-line battle tank never before seen in action in Kosovo. They were brought in by train to Mitrovica that morning, watched by those helpless monitors.
This fighting is part of a two-pronged offensive - military and political - by the Serbs to show the world they are not intimidated by NATO's threats to bomb if they fail to sign a peace plan.
Politically, the Serb delegation at talks in Paris met Western threats with defiance. Not only will they refuse to allow NATO peacekeepers into Kosovo, but they also dispute the peace plan agreed on by the ethnic Albanians the day before.
President Milan Milutinovic announced he would sign the peace deal only if changes were made to it. As for the proposal for NATO peacekeepers he was blunt: "We reject it."
Western mediators in Paris were forced to back-pedal, with Mr Phil Reeker, the US spokesman, saying they were holding informal meetings with Serb delegates. The US says that unless a deal is signed, and peacekeepers are allowed in, there will be bombing. But the Serbs, seeing the reservations from the French and Italians, and the opposition from the Russians, are calling their bluff.
Far from disengaging, Serbian forces continue pouring into Kosovo.
The rebels have their own problems, with commanders of one of the five operational zones, Lap, issuing a statement denouncing Monday's announcement that the KLA will sign the peace deal. "We find it necessary to dissociate ourselves from this wrong anti-national policy," the statement asserted.