Flemish Marco (55) in Altea testifies after a serious forest fire: “Suddenly I received messages from everywhere. Everyone was worried” | Abroad

The fire started this morning around 3:30 am, near the Mascarat district. It was a forest fire that immediately spread very quickly. About 45 minutes later, the first people had to be evacuated. Flemish Marco Seiffermann has his own real estate office there and lives nearby. “My phone suddenly rang off the hook,” he says. “I know a lot of people in the affected area and we also have a number of buildings under key management. So everyone was worried.”

The fire spread to the Altea Hills neighborhood. And that’s where Marco wanted to go tonight. But that was without counting the emergency services. “All main roads were completely closed. You couldn’t actually get anywhere via the normal roads,” he says. “Meanwhile we saw helicopters flying with fire extinguishing water. They really did everything they could to get the fire under control quickly. But we received photos and videos from people who lived there. We actually really wanted to go there, but that didn’t work out.”

In the meantime, Marco was able to reach the scene. And there he found that the fire had mainly destroyed a lot of forest land. The damage to the houses themselves appears not to be too bad. “It mainly concerns terraces that are damaged. Where things are still smoldering,” he says. “But the fire doesn’t seem to have spread to houses anywhere. And that is the most important thing.”

We call Marco around 2:30 PM. According to him, the fire had only been extinguished twenty minutes ago at that time. “We were really afraid that the fire would reach the top. Mascarat is located on the sea itself and is slightly less inhabited. But Altea Hills is still very inhabited. Luckily they were able to stop it before it reached the houses there.”