“I only have a few gayumbos, jeans and a sweater. It’s the only thing I have,” he says collapsed Jordi Villalta, neighbor of the River Park urbanization, in the municipality of El Pont de Vilomara and Rocafort (Bages). His house is completely destroyed. The roof is sagging. The iron beams, warped by the heat. The walls, carved. Ashes everywhere. Vilalta has been sleeping in a car for two days and now they have lent him a van. “I’m devastated,” admits the man, in full shock. Like him, the residents of the urbanization most affected by the Bages fire have been able to return home today and digest the damage left by the tongue of fire. “At least we are alive”, some are resigned.
To get to this urbanization you have to climb a hill along the road. The flames, until Monday, made it impossible to reach her. This morning, as soon as the accesses were opened, it was necessary to swallow saliva before starting the route. The green of the pines is already history, the burnt photo of a completely gray landscape. Only dust and charred logs remain. Above, the panorama is bleak. There are corpses of domestic animals and the tracks of their last steps are impregnated on the asphalt. The walls of the houses have been dyed black. Many roofs have given way. Most of the appliances are melted. Sulfur-stained neighbors snort and can’t believe it.
16 years of life and three dogs
Jordi Vilalta walks incredulously through what used to be his home. “I have nothing,” he repeats with wide eyes. “Yesterday they already told me that my house was destroyed, but I didn’t want to believe it… I’m in ‘shock’, this is brutal,” he continues. The man has lived in River Park for 16 years with his three dogs. “I was very happy and proud of my house with a garden. Now there is absolutely nothing left,” he says resignedly. He has no clothes. He just put it on. “The last two nights I slept in my car with my three dogs: my back is broken, I was in terrible heat,” explains this man who declined to sleep in the municipal pavilion set up by the Red Cross.
“My mother’s wedding photos, the miniature train she was building… Nothing, nothing, everything has been lost,” he continues to be mesmerized by the disaster. The bathroom is in pieces. You can’t even see the bathtub. Some neighbors have left him a van enabled to spend the next few nights. “I hope they give us compensation for this, we will have to survive whatever it takes,” appeal. “I’ll have to go to the Red Cross to ask for clothes, I forgot to tell them, it’s that I was only thinking of coming here. And now, I can’t think of anything else,” says Vilalta, visibly confused.
“What do you want me to tell you? I’m devastated. But at least we’re alive,” says David Enríquez, a neighbor, who won’t be able to return home for a long time. He also came to River Park 16 years ago, when he bought a nice two-story house with a garden, pool and garage. Today he trembled just thinking that his cat could be dead. It was not so. But his house does. The windows are smashed. The fridge, melted. The walls have been stained black and what used to be a kitchen, bathroom and dining room now looks like a large landfill. Shirtless and covered in sweat, he never stops taking trips. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to live here again, but at least I’m taking the TV and the few appliances that have lasted so they don’t get stolen,” he explains. The rest of his house is already past. Including the pool and the water treatment plant, completely calcined. He now returns to his parents’ house, in Rubí.
more debris
Manuel Aragón walks in front of a house that has disappeared. Nothing remains. Rubble and ashes. “I have come to take photos because the owners do not dare to come, they do not have the courage. They are with the psychologists… devastated. But they have asked me if I can send them some photos of how it turned out,” continues the man. There are dozens of deceased animals. In the same street, in front, another flattened house. In addition, there is a van “valued at 70,000 euros” completely burned. “The owners are devastated,” explains another neighbor, Eloi Barquín, who sees part of his house still standing.
“My house hasn’t burned down because in winter I broke the regulations and started cutting pine trees,” he says. The property is connected to an uninhabited lot. “It was full of trees. A year ago I asked them to clean it up and six months later, since they didn’t do anything, I started cutting down the pines with my friends. That’s why my house has endured,” he continues. And he predicts that he will continue with this cleaning thinking about the coming summers. From the balcony of his house you can see the entire Sant Llorenç del Munt i L’Obac Natural Park. The Montcau, Montserrat, and the whole mountain set on fire. In the tiles you can guess a few steps of a dog. “When we arrived we found the dead animal,” he continues. He same fate as his duck and his hens. “Our street is the most affected: it will take time to go back to sleep peacefully.”
Solidarity and consolation
Aragon, like everyone else, clings to the positive. “At times like this you see how neighbors and friends help you with what they can,” he explains. It becomes evident when visiting the house of the Picó family. “Thank you very much, but what do you want me to tell you? There is nothing to do here, there is nothing left,” says the father, Jose. They are residents of Barberà del Vallès, more than 30 years ago they built a second residence in the urbanization. Now it is completely destroyed. The Picó family have an aperitif among the ruins covered in ash. “There are many memories that we have spent here,” says the mother, Luisa, 66 years old. The daughter tries to get the microwaves out of the house, the only thing that has survived among the embers
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In the same street, Joaquima Ferrer trims the branches of several bushes in his garden. She is covered in ash. “I came up crying, I’ve been in River Park for more than 20 years,” she explains, devastated. “The blinds have melted, we had a wooden house that has burned down completely, the pool awning, the windows are broken… It was a hair’s breadth that I didn’t burn myself too,” says the woman, who told him caught the flames alone at home. The last steps taken by the dog that died at Barquín’s house are still impregnated on the asphalt. “It could be us,” he continues.
There are dozens of neighbors who go home sad. But there are also some who come out of them for the first time. It is the case of Xavier Caldes, who decided to confine himself to his house instead of fleeing, as did his wife and children. “It’s been like living in hell,” says the man. He decided to stay because he didn’t want to lose his house. “If I knew what would happen, maybe I wouldn’t have stayed. Of course I was scared!”, He assures. But in the end, his house is practically intact. “I didn’t see a single hose, the firemen let everything burn. If I hadn’t been here, soaking the house with the water from the pool, I wouldn’t have a house,” he sighs.