On Wednesday they returned to Benijosto their neighborhood, to their houses, after several days of uncertainty, fear and being evicted at dawn, in a hurry and running before an unstoppable fire that razed a large part of the mountains of Tenerife and caused great damage in the municipality of the orotavawhere there is 5,505 hectares affectedmore than 37% of the total area of the fire that has affected the Island since August 15.
Juan Jose Doniz He was yesterday with his goats, in front of his yellow house, where he returned two days ago although he had to spend the night at his brother-in-law’s house because “the smell of smoke was unbearable.”
And it still is, “because during the day you can breathe a little better but at night you can’t even open a window,” says Carmelo Labrador, a neighbor who lives below. They told him at five in the morning on Sunday that he had to leave his house and “in 20 minutes we had to leave.” When he returned he found her well, “although smoky.”
Two colors intermingle on the mountain, black and green. The first, from the burned vegetation, where the sparks fell and a fire of great intensity was generated. The second, where the damage has been minimal and therefore the species will recover in a short time.
It is overwhelming to see how the flames grazed many of the houses in the upper part of the neighborhood, especially those between Camino La Iglesia and El Bucio prolongation, belonging to several members of a few families. They were saved thanks to the intense work of the forestry brigades and firefighters, who worked “thoroughly” and with all the conditions against it, temperature and humidity, until they managed to keep the fire at the gates of the buildings.
One of them was that of Jorge Luis Prieto Curbelo, who has lived in Benijos for 23 years. His house was not affected “by a miracle”, just like his daughter’s, a few meters from his, in which the fire reached the wall. “It did not cause more damage to more thanks to the Brifor.” According to what they told him, “they prepared the defense on the first runway and it jumped over the workers, they had to leave and they prepared another defense in which they also experienced dangerous moments for them, especially when the fire walked through the ravine.”
There came a time when the firefighting services threw water on the houses to try to save them, “because the flames were between 15 and 15 meters high and the fire took an impressive load”, declared yesterday the Councilor for Security, Narciso Pérez, during a visit to the area accompanied by the mayor, Francisco Linares, and other members of the government group, given the reactivation of some outbreaks. There were also firefighters in Pinolere, the Hondura ravine and Florida Alta, where firefighters from Tenerife and Brifor could be seen yesterday and there was a discharge of aerial resources.
Jorge Luis, his wife and son, went to his mother’s house, to Santa María del Mar. He came and went every day because his daughter, who is six months pregnant, stayed with her husband’s grandparents, in The Realejos. On Wednesday, when they returned, “we were out of place, we didn’t know what to do. What I wanted was to see my daughter,” said the woman.
“I had to sit down, I went to the garden, until a while passed and I started cleaning, talking to the neighbors and checking that everyone was okay, which is the most important thing,” he added. In his small orchard you can see three dried plums due to the intense heat. It was enough to touch the leaves to see how they melted in the hands. “They are hard trees, they recover,” he said. Beans and tomato plants were not spared either.
The magnitude of the fire was enormous throughout the perimeter, which not only covers Benijos but also the upper part of Las Llanadas, right on the border with the municipality of Los Realejos. “Even from Palo Blanco, because the fire advanced at such a speed that it came to meet the Tigaiga fire, which took place in July of last year. In other words, it crossed the Valley in one day, since it also reached the part of the hillside that borders Santa Úrsula,” the mayor specified.
the fear continues
In fact, the technicians described the circumstances of this fire as exceptional, with intense clouds of smoke, which prevented the air resources from acting. For this reason, the guard cannot be lowered and work continues to prevent the fire from leaving its perimeter. As is logical, the neighbors are afraid and call the emergency telephone numbers because they continue to see many columns of smoke, “a normal process that will continue in the coming days,” Pérez clarified.
Beyond supervising the extinction work, he has also accompanied the neighbors when they return to their homes. “It has been complicated and full of emotion. There is a feeling of sadness in the environment because we are in neighborhoods that are very attached to the rural environment, to livestock, and the evacuation was very complicated due to the number of animals that were there, ”he said.
The mayor confessed that there were very hard times at dawn on Sunday, when Aguamansa had to be evacuated in a matter of minutes because the fire was close, contrary to the first evacuations, which were planned and the residents were given enough time to remove their belongings.
They too returned and found their houses intact.
And although they repeat that human lives are the most important thing, they cannot help but think at times that they were about to lose them. There are his memories, his work “of years”, part of his life. “We can start from scratch, but older people, what do they do?” asks Jorge Luis’s wife.
