Each year in December we take advantage of two public holidays at the start of the month to spend a week in Candeleda. This year was no different, we gathered the family and turned up as usual on a Friday afternoon. The routine, open all the blinds, check for issues, start the fire,wonder around the garden and if there is enough light go for a walk before getting ready to go into town for a nice dinner. Unfortunately this years routine was interrupted by the fire.
While the rest of the family went to check out the countryside I decided as usual to stay behind and wonder around the garden a bit more. As I was stuffing my face before hitting the garden trail I happened to look up at the chimney, I guess something must have caught my eye, when I focused I notice flames licking at the roof, calm panic set in. I ran to the shed, pulled out the hose, pulled out the ladder, called the family so they could help, luckily I manged to get through to them and they came running (walking fast in some cases) back to help out.
If you've never been in this situation its interesting to see how the mind works, I had mixed feelings about taking a hose into the house to douse the flames, I wanted to put out the fire but I was concerned about wetting things inside the house, those feelings became less mixed once I saw the extent of the flames.
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| The smoke begins to spread |
At one point my sister in law asked if we should not call the fire brigade, I was up the ladder hosing down the roof, I looked at the roof, then looked back at her, took another look a the roof then said, "maybe not a bad idea".
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| That's me enveloped in smoke, while onlookers talk about the weekends football match |
My wife called the local police, she had to actually go out and show them the way to the house, come on guys just follow the smoke, someone called the local civil guard and then someone called the local civil protection. At this point, about an hour after the fire had started my family and I were the only people actually doing anything in, the civil guards and local police where all standing around nodding their heads gravely, I'm sure they where betting between themselves as to how long before the whole house went up in flames, my wife was livid. Luckily the civil protection team, a volunteer team of two ( think one was the local butcher), got into action, climbed up on the roof with me, started pulling tiles of the roof (FYI if you ever need to put out a roof fire remember the tiles actually prevent the water from getting to the fire). They hosed the roof with some sort of fire retardant and then did the same inside the house.
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| The plot, like the smoke, thickens |
While I was busy climbing up and down ladders and wondering if the roof would give way while I was up there, the family was busy moving furniture and generally doing a great job considering that the house was full of acrid smoke making it impossible to breath or see much.
Two hours after the fire had started the fire brigade arrived. It turns out that Candeleda does not have a local fire brigade, the nearest one is Avila, which is about 100K away, but remember between us and them is a mountain range, so 2 hours is not bad going all considered.
By the time the fire brigade arrived it was getting dark which added to the effect of the lights
The firemen all trundled onto the roof, started throwing more tiles onto the lawn, pulled out a chain saw and cut through one of the beams holding up the roof, they wanted to make sure the fire was completely out, they then packed up and left.
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| Two hours later |
By this stage most people had left, my wife and I stayed behind to clean up the mess, which mean mopping up all the water in the house, opening the doors and windwos to clear out the smoke. Lat that night we wondered into two to grab a room in a hotel grab a shaower and get something to eat.
While I'm disappointed this happened I'm glad to say no one was hurt and the house is still standing.
