13-18 August – Vall de Laguer Fire

On Saturday 13 August there was a long electric storm with lightening, but no thunder or rain.

During our early morning walk on Sunday we could see a lot of smoke in the hills towards Benichembla and Castells

By Monday photos were appearing on Facebook, such as this one from Benichembla

Or this one taken from Pedreguer

Or even more worrying this one from Orba

This map shows the situation on Monday 15 August.

By Tuesday 16 August the fire has spread from Pego to Castells and there were reports of up to 2000 people being evacuated

Pego, Benimassot and Atzubia were particularly mentioned for evacuation.

This photo was taken in Pego

This one in Atzubia

As we started our early morning walk on Wednesday 17 August we could see a large new fire which seemed to be in the direction of Orba and Rafol

Throughout the day there were large numbers of helicopters flying over Parcent towards Orba 

There was also a strong smell of smoke, and a lot of ash which covered pools and cars

Facebook kept us up to date with the latest information, and photos like this one from Rafol

Or this from Beniarbeig.....

....Tormos....

.....Fleix...

...and Alcalali

The long awaited rain arrived on Thursday 18 August, particularly heavy in Pego and Pedreguer

On Friday 19 August we were delighted to see this post on Facebook.   Everyone is so grateful to the firemen and other emergency staff who worked for so long and so hard in such terrible circumstances.   Temperatures were 36-38c and it was too hot to do anything outdoors after 0900.   Imagine what it must have been like for them to fight raging fires for five days.