After the fire

It was a little cooler overnight and no further outbreaks of fire but windy all day and I slept late to make up for yesterday's early start. I called Patricia after breakfast to check on her, as she told me yesterday afternoon that fire had reached just behind the police station. It torched a small local community centre, but spread no further as the bomberos isolated the outbreak. She spent three hours out on the pavement ready to leave if required. Rose, another church member in a wheelchair, who lives nearby was evacuated as a precaution, but the fire was contained and the dwellings spared. 

I'd been wondering how the helicopters could be delivering buckets of water every few minutes, but didn't seem to be flying down to the sea. It turns out that in the foothills of the sierra behind Estepona is a golf course and an artificial lake. Patricia's son lives up that way, and had a good view of the helicopters dipping their buckets into the lake. The skill and co-ordination between pilots and teams on the ground is impressive. More fire outbreaks up at Benahavis, fortunately contained quickly.

I worked on my Sunday sermon again late morning, then had a call from Clare who's been to see one of the GPs. She's been told that her squashed spinal disc is related to a cracked vertebra, due to osteoporosis. She'd not been told this before. It means she needs to be careful about how she exercises, though exercise is vital, so as not to increase the stress on the vertebra in question. It's distressing to find this out while I'm away from home, but there's no going back, and she'll need to take extra care when she comes out to join me in three weeks time.

After cooking the remainder of the beef into another cazuelo, I got the recycling and rubbish ready to take down to the bins later in the day, then put a load of washing through the machine. In a strong wind at 30C it dried very quickly. Hanging it out in the heat was like working in front of a furnace.

When it started to cool a little, I took the rubbish down, then walked to the Carrefour supermarket to get some olives, garlic and a bottle of organic wine. After supper as the sun was setting, I walked up the track alongside the arroyo and took photos of the fire damage. There was a burned out car at the far end, and a small holder's house and garden which looked as if it hadn't burned down, saved by having a surrounding wall and patio as much as anything. I couldn't be sure but maybe the vegetable garden survived too, tucked under the retaining wall holding up the autovia. The wind downdraft could have blown the fire away from it.  Certainly the rows of bean sticks weren't scorched, but as for the plants, no idea as it was getting dark.

Almost all the length of the track served as a fire break, except for the two hundred metres before the small holding, which was entirely burned out. At the start of this section, the arroyo crossed the road. It was strange to see the distinct place below which greenery didn't burn, and above which was blackened wasteland. I last walked up there the evening of my arrival, but took few photos, but a recall there being an open field, either covered with grass for grazing animals, or some kind of grain. The fact that the area was more open at this point may well have determined how the wind blew in the space confined by the fifteen metre retaining wall. 

As I was taking photos, a car stopped, curious about me, and we chatted for a few minutes about the destruction. The cumpaneros in the car assumed I was harmless and drove on to visit the man in the small holding. Its windows were boarded up. Broken by the heat of the fire? Or was this done to protect the place when not in use? Or done in haste when the fire started? People here are more used to extreme weather than we are in the UK. The valley reeked of burning and so did I when I returned, Nothing left was hot or smouldering, but the local ecosystem has taken a hit. There were some birds around, thankful for power lines and telegraph wires to perch on. Little cover for them in the bushes or reed beds. Most will have taken refuge elsewhere for the time being, no doubt.

Time for a shower and bed now.