Mojácar on Fire

Picture by Adrian.

A fire started yesterday in the hills above Turre and, with a strong wind, it crashed down through Mojácar. We slept on the beach in a friend's house. Our own home was engulfed but, on inspection today, the house seems to have survived although everything else looks like the Seventh Circle of Hell.
The fire by late last night was on three sides of where I was staying. Inland and east and west.
We had been at the house, watching the red sky and worrying. Fiddling with the hose. Making vague plans.
It comes down on you like a train. We had perhaps a minute's warning from the police to GET OUT GET OUT before the trees were on fire. We went down into the dry riverbed nearby and watched the mountain behind our house go up like a volcano. The air was hot and dry. Local people came past with their stories. Others on their phones shouting news.
We had a neighbour with us who had been burned when her car caught fire and exploded. We took her to emergency on the beach - fighting against the current on thousands of cars making for Garrucha. She seems OK this morning.
Mojácar doesn't.

Now there is talk of some fire-bug having started the blaze and, they say, experts are coming down from Madrid with their kits to investigate. The real concern must be towards building fire breaks (!) rather than chasing some phantom lunatic with a mechero. The city-based environmental weenies can't run the countryside. Well, they've proved that.

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