That night of August 15, he did not sleep in the farmhouse that he has very close to the Chivisaya viewpoint, a few meters (Lomo Redondo) from where he started the most devastating fire Tenerife has ever known in this century. Nicomedes Carballo, 87, descendant of the last pastor of Las Cañadas (Juan Izaña) It’s been a while since he spent the nights with his goats and sheep, because for years he has had to help himself with a cane. However, that night, some neighbors had the precaution of releasing the few goats and sheep that Nicomedes still keeps, while the males had already fled, before the fire towards the depth of the ravines.
On Friday, with the help of the mayor of Arafo, Juan Ramon Martin -Los Loros highway is closed up to kilometer 8 and his farm is at kilometer 10-, Nicomedes Carballo was able to return to his old shed and see the traces of fire on the walls, still impregnated with the smell of smoke, but inside intact. What could be saved was the corral, made of uralite sheets, blocks and pallets, but at least he observed with joy that his males were very close by. However, the old shepherd could not hide his disgust, seeing from that vantage point the black cloak left by a huge fire. “Never in all my years have I seen anything like it in this area,” he commented to the mayor, who did not stop encouraging him, with the aim of returning to what has been a tradition in the Nicomedes house, the gatherings around a glass white wine and soft cheese tasting.
“When I fed the males, I realized that these animals should not be there, they should be preparing to open our pilgrimage in honor of San Agustín for another year,” says Juan Ramón Martín, recalling that on Saturday Arafo had planned celebrate their great pilgrimage, suspended for obvious reasons.
Nicomedes regretted that their animals will have to eat now I think because “the grass will take time to grow”, although for some time he has been complaining about the policy of the Cabildo: “Goats do not peel the summit. Before they grazed in Izaña and it was full of broom, they threw out the goats and the broom is dry, the goat did a natural pruning and dug to leave manure, something that has been lost in Las Cañadas”, he says.
He remembers that until four years ago he went out to graze every day, until he withdrew his flock -he had a hundred goats- through the highlands of Arafo and Candelaria, just below Izaña, where the last goatherd, his father, grazed. , Juan de Izaña, who did it until grazing was prohibited due to the repopulation of pine trees in 1956. He has lived in Arafo for 25 years, together with his wife Eva, and until a few months ago he lived almost daily in a shed in Chivisaya, at a thousand meters of altitude, although always with the help of friends or family, although “My grandchildren don’t like goat meat or milk, only yogurt and cookies; something I have never tasted in my life”comment.
Neither Nicomedes Carballo nor the mayor want to ensure that the fire was intentional, but both recall that it is suspicious that since the fire on July 15, just a month before the now stabilized one began, there were up to six attempts from Arafo to El Rosario.
The fire started at 11:30 p.m. on the 15th in Lomo Redondo, just a few meters from the veteran shepherd’s shed heading towards the summit. When the helicopters arrived early in the morning, the fire had already spread throughout the Güímar Valley and a hundred people had been evicted. Then it was extended to the dorsal highway and passed from La Esperanza to the entire northern area, reaching Los Realejos to return to the Güímar heights.
In what they do agree, pastor and mayor, is that “it has been a miracle that there were no personal misfortunes and that the houses were saved, seeing that uncontrolled fire.”
