“Hello, we have miraculously escaped suffering damage in our valley area; it seems that others in higher areas have indeed suffered damage, but I believe all residents are safe.” With these words, Rubin, a 78-year-old Welsh citizen living in the El Pinar de Bédar urbanization for 25 years who had to urgently leave his home on Thursday due to the advancing fire, contacted La Vanguardia this Sunday.
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As he told this newspaper on Saturday, a few hours before the closure of the provisional shelter located in Garrucha, where he went to eat and wash, “the fire advanced very quickly and within an hour it was in front of my house.” “My plan for that night was to go to a party, but a neighbor came to get me with her car and I left with her safely,” he recounted.
“This is a very rural area with trees, with vegetation… Nobody warned us,” lamented Rubin, referring to the controversy generated in recent days over the non-sending of an ES-Alert and the way those affected were informed that they had to leave their homes. “I do know of other neighbors who were called at their doors, but we left because of the proximity of the fire,” he continued.
“First they told us we had to go to the pavilion and from there to the municipal center,” set up on Thursday night to attend to the first evacuees from the fire, “but we preferred to go to the bar,” he pointed out. He also acknowledged that among the various neighbors of the urbanization, many Anglo-Saxons, they have a Facebook group through which they kept informed about the fire.
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They didn’t warn us, we left because of the proximity of the fire”
Although Rubin was at the Vista Alegre sports center in Garrucha on Saturday, set up as a provisional shelter through which about 600 people passed, he did not stay overnight there. As other people also told La Vanguardia from Garrucha, “I have been sleeping in the car”: “And it’s not mine, it’s a neighbor’s, because I think mine will be burned.”
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That same Saturday, many evacuees were relocated to homes of close relatives or hotels in the town of Mojácar, but the only hope of the Welsh neighbor was to be able to return to his home: “They have told us that maybe we will return tonight, I still don’t know how my house will be.”
Rubin promised to get in touch with La Vanguardia when he had finally been able to return to his home and on Sunday morning, after the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, announced the stabilization of the fire and that all evacuees could return to their homes, this newspaper wrote again to the neighbor from El Pinar.
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“They will possibly let us return around 4:00 p.m., we’ll talk again when I’m home,” he replied, and about three hours later the Welsh citizen wrote to La Vanguardia to explain the miracle that the fire had not affected his home and sent photos that showed that, indeed, the fire passed just a few meters from his house.
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