Hi David,

As our Cortijo was directly affected by this fire, I thought it might be useful to send you a few pix and a more accurate report on the event than has appeared to date on the website.

The fire was first noted by my wife at 1900 as we heard the noise of burning. As our Sunday roast was nearing completion at the time she, naturally(?) concluded that something had overcooked.

Having discovered that all was well in the home kitchen we then realised that our neighbour’s field was well afire. We tried to call the bomberos but there was no response, however our neighbours advised that they had called and a response was on the way.

We thought we were reasonably safe as there was little wind and the fire was being contained. Suddenly a wind sprung up from the direction of the coast and the cane in the barranco caught.

It is incredible how fast that fire then moved with a sound hard to describe, popping, cracking and exploding as it ate its way up the barranco spreading the fire even further.

By the time the bomberos arrived, the first consignment coming by helicopter, the fire had really taken hold and was racing up the hill from the barranco. By this time, the speed of events having overtaken us, the fire was raging on both sides of the track to our house so we had to climb up the steep hill through the campo, mostly gorse and broom, to escape the flames.

We eventually reached the camino which passes through our property but there were moments during the climb when it appeared that the fire would overtake us.

We spent the rest of the evening with a number of our neighbours watching the efforts of three helicopters and one aircraft bombing the fire with water and powder (the aircraft) and the extremely brave bomberos beating the fire with shovels.

In the event, they did such an amazing job in the fact that none of the houses suffered damage and the invernados were damaged but not consumed.

Primarily there was no loss of life or injury to people, however a boar was spotted running from the fire and we fear for the well-being of the bee-eaters who nest in the banks on the hill.

Chris J Oliver