The Big Burning
20 March 2013 | Jávea
Cathy
Even Later Thursday Night
Sometime after midnight the first of the main fallas is set alight. This is really something to put on your bucket list – perhaps near the end because a certain amount of risk to life and limb is involved. I’d been more than a little relieved to see the fire brigade arrive at the burning of the smaller children’s falla. Now they were the stars.
We’d watched the setting up of the explosives. The hacking of holes into the rather saucy sculptures was entertaining in its own right. By now the members of the falla district had obviously had a little tipple and the band was getting everybody dancing around the towering wounded beast that the carving had become.
Again the arrival of the Bombers (firemen) was the signal that things were about to get started. Once they’d set up their hoses, the Queen did her stuff. This time the whole edifice exploded into an inferno. The heat on the side we were standing forced the spectators back more effectively than any fence pushing. Immediately the hoses were trained onto the burning edifice to gain control. The plastic signs close by needed a good soaking to stop them melting and the nearest buildings, their balconies now empty of the pyjama-clad occupants, were dramatically deluged in an effort to save them.
No, nothing had gone wrong. This is how it was supposed to be. Six more to go.