Goodbye, blue sky, the firestorm has arrived. The clear firmament of the southern Ávila mountains darkens. The funeral pyre of burning forests rises at unusual speeds and densities. Clouds strangle the sun and plunge Casavieja (1,500 inhabitants) into premature night at six in the evening under an orange and black filter. The diabolical fire creeping from the mountains wants to engulf the town. It unleashes anarchic gusts that make the front’s direction dance, chaos for professional and volunteer firefighters who run like ants and extend hoses amidst flying embers, howling winds, trees crackling in their last gasp, and the roar of the beast like a destructive undertow. Mission: to prevent the town from entering another circle of the fiery hell that is devastating Spain.
The fire climbs mountains while cars have to wind their way along narrow roads where one wonders what is scarier: looking at the abyss below or the mushroom cloud of smoke above. Burgohondo is left behind, in whose municipality the horror was born on Wednesday. Graffiti on the ground encourages the old hero from Ávila, cyclist ‘Chava’ Jiménez, and fallen riders: “Luis, your peloton always.” Casavieja appears below the mountain range: a flank prevents action in the camping area, a burning path threatens the top of the town, and a tongue attacks from the side.
Dozens of firefighters are distributed throughout the core area amidst the locals’ apprehension, both grateful and tense. María Jiménez, 27, shows photos of the mountain on Friday at 2:20 PM: innocent bonfires on the summit. “With two water tanks, it would have been put out,” she estimates. In the afternoon, perhaps with a pass from a seaplane, it could have been contained, according to other images. Then it got out of control, and although there are now dozens of personnel, the strength of the front and the mass of smoke make it ungovernable.
“Very bad.” “It’s coming with uncontrolled force.” “We’ve tried to act three times near the campsite but the wind pushes us back.” “We can’t fight it, the smoke suffocates you.” “You can’t trust it, in 20 or 30 meters the fire will be on you.” The frenzy of brigade members shouts as they move their trucks, load their fire beaters, connect their hoses, and receive orders. A group heads towards the upper part of the town, the campsite, but loses the fight. Retreat. Afterwards, they head towards another sector where the still invisible fire enters through the ears, eyes, and mouth. There they cool down the plots adjacent to homes, overgrown land, ideal for the flames.
“This is like a movie.” Science fiction: the hurricane rises and embers strike like furious mosquitoes against the masks with screens against harmful gases, black clouds shoot up without warning, the crackling of burning trees is frightening, but it’s better to wait for it to get even closer to hit it with hose blasts. Cold blood. Meanwhile, remove weeds or kick down doors to grab garden hoses as reinforcement. “Get down the slope and you’ll be safe! Instead of the mountain, to the concrete!” a commander roars in the darkness. It’s 7:14 PM and the beast appears. “Pressure, please, it’s coming!” “Everything you see as grass, wet it!” “Confirm they’re okay!” A technician insists to the rear, next to the water truck: “I don’t want us to risk more than necessary! Watch these people’s backs!” The shouts mix with the crackling and the commands from the transmitter on his belt.
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The devil arrives at 7:31 PM. The orange column tries to bite the trees, but suffers from the humidity of the terrain and the vegetation watered minutes before. The throat stings and demands a cough, eyes dry, the wind continues to shake, the ground blackens, but the homes are not in danger. Good job. A firefighter from the Castilla y León unit sighs and takes off his glasses. They are not suitable for that helmet: “Smoke gets in everywhere.” “We want a proper operation that isn’t the last in Spain, not the best but at least intermediate,” he demands, overwhelmed summer after summer, amidst what he defines as “a hurricane, this sounds like a raging river.” The firefighter, before rushing off to another hot spot, recounts how people get indignant with them when they retreat from an unmanageable flank: “The locals call us sons of bitches. I understand, but we can’t do anything. It’s better to err on the side of caution: the cemetery is full of brave men.”
The main road of this Casavieja urbanization fills with fire trucks and units from all origins. “Grab the shovels!” “Shall we enter through the meadow now?” The fluorescent suits move through the gray and orange mass that envelops them and sweat to cut off another entry route towards some houses, even though the wind roars and diverts the direction of the flames. “… a fucking chaos,” a worker mutters at a gallop.
Tension pulses among the non-professionals. There are mixed crews where the eager volunteers seem disguised: in contrast to the technical uniform of the brigade members, there are people in camouflage clothing, surgical masks, gardening gloves, running shoes, branches and fire beaters to fight the fire, and a lot of courage and a lot of nerves. One confronts the photographer: “You didn’t come to take pictures yesterday when no one was here!” Another calms him: “Charlie, if they don’t come, no one will know what’s happening and that no one was here.”
Among them all, in the threshing floors where a burning spear seeks to spread, they control it. The hose runs through their hands, staining their palms with ash like that which settles on clothes and hair, a smell of desolation that takes days to leave the nose and memory. The stress multiplies heartbeats and there is nausea amidst the slight satisfaction of this partial victory. The devil retreats after the nocturnal defeat in Casavieja and other towns where the brigade members denied it access to the houses. It contents itself with scorching the mountain. Now it will seek new victims. It bids farewell with slamming doors: those of the metal garden gates struck by the passing wind and ash in an endless war.
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