The gigantic fire that sweeps the south of the province of León from the north of Zamora has caused the greatest evacuation that is remembered in recent history, more than 8,000 people in the Leon province, given the danger of the flames that surrounded about thirty localities, In addition to a deceased neighbor when he tried to avoid the worst of fire. But the resistance precisely from the neighbors to leave and fight against fire has been decisive, they all denounce unanimously, to save the villages. The controversial motto “Only the people saves the people” has turned on as fast as the fire spread, repeated to satiety by the neighbors we have found.
In Castrocalbón 'the neighborhood' was partially grass of the flames. This set of houses a little away from the urban nucleus has seen how a third of its buildings have burned. Among them several inhabited houses. Mother and daughter contemplate with great strength the disaster of yours. The house has been reduced to semi -ruined walls and debris, and was newly renovated. They were evicted, but they returned to see the disaster since until the last minute they tried to stop it with a small bomb and help from other neighbors that was entirely insufficient.
“You who have a house here to live and now this,” the daughter laments. The mother observes her surrounding garden, intact, while explaining what her home was like and points out that the new one has burned and another they have has not been affected, “another house below did not burn, this could have been left.” “It has been very very fat, we had the fire on two sides,” says the daughter while remembering when they were notified, “get the hoses that has been painting badly.” “They have to catch the one who did it because it is done on purpose,” he claims.
In Castrocalbón a meeting point has been created to organize the groups that monitor the reproductions to try to turn them off. There is hardly any coverage except here, there are even some areas of the town without light because the transformers burst by the fire. Your rise to the palace and you can see all the contour. Groups of young people are organized by forming patrols of various for security to go from where notices of small reproductions arrive. They point out the media insufficiency, here if there were brigades in the worst -the afternoon and night from Monday to Tuesday -and that if it is not for the neighbors who did not want to go, the entire town would have burned. The houses and agricultural facilities in which many families have their jobs had to be saved. It could only be partially achieved. “I've never been afraid in my life, but I had it yesterday,” summarizes one with the scare in the body.
Despite the massive eviction ordered by the authorities on Tuesday, the towns in the area have returned to a rare normality. One day dedicated to reviewing the perimeter and suffocating reproductions. The fire has burned some of them partially, such as Palacios de Jamuz, and in the rest it has stayed at the doors or burning buildings and homes, as in Pinilla de la Valdería. Terror remains in the neighbors who stayed.
Impossible communications
Mobile communications came down on Monday afternoon and have not recovered. In some villages the fixed worked thanks to the fiber. But this Tuesday I didn't work either. A tour of the affected roads leaves a quite bleak panorama. Fire advanced in language mode sweeping crops and forests, irregularly due to continuous changes of time. This Tuesday afternoon great chaparrons have been experienced, but they did not decisively affected any of the still active fronts.
In San Esteban de Nogales, a town in León stuck to the province of Zamora, the intervention of the neighbors, a brigade of the Board and the UME were decisive to prevent the town from being razed, which was surrounded by two fronts, says one of the neighbors. It was even saved a chicken farm in which it had to be used thoroughly, with the paddle track about to be the flame grass. “The young people went to the mountain to turn off a little what we saw until 3 or 4 in the morning but the next day was horrible,” he says. “The UME and the brigades are overwhelmed because it is that all Spain is the same,” summarizes its intervention to save its town.
This Wednesday the day has been quieter, of control, but at the end of the afternoon the entire valley has been filled with smoke from a nearby reproduction that could become front. The City Council has organized a refreshment and rest point to provide water and food to the brigades and from there the brigades are organized to fight the fire again, Despite the tiredness accumulated for endless days.
Neighborhood surveillance
The road that connects Alija del Infantado is full of vehicles in El Alto from which the entire valley is observed. There the neighbors come to detect the reproductions and give the corresponding notice. From early in the morning until last in the afternoon while the sun and smoke show something. Concerns a reproduction in the Bécares area, whose smoke column is seen perfectly from the early afternoon. A group of neighbors tries to extinguish another smaller reproduction nearby.
The same goes for Destrian, in the region of La Valduerna where the fire extended razing hundreds of hectares of pine forests, part of the livelihood of the area. The neighbors organize with what they can, tractors, hoses and cubes, while watching as three helicopters use their pool to recharge water against a nearby front. The smoke seizes the sky and everything becomes yellowish.
In Genestacio de la Vega, two women, Feli and Chon, rest at the door of their home. They tell the afternoon and night of horror that they lived on Monday, “I thank God who was a daytime, if it is nocturnal does not come out as it came out,” he summarizes. “We already had everything off and with the night we only saw spotlights and spotlights and spotlights. If you turn on a house you all have, they have all wood on the roof.” “In the villages we all had animals and straw for them, and how the animals were sold, then that turns on, it is a real powder magazine.”
In the Nora del Río another group of neighbors tries to extinguish a reproduced conato 500 meters from the town. There is no time to lose. With sulfatadoras and water jars half dozen neighbors to cool the area to prevent this small wooded area from ending up burning. They warn 112 but nobody arrives. He even passes the forest guard vehicle without even stopping to ask if something was needed, this journalist attests. “A shame”, summary without wasting time to return to the task. The outrage has set among the neighborhood.
