La Cremà
19 March 2013 | Jávea
Cathy
Thursday Night
According to the program the burning of the children's fallas starts at around 9.30pm. When they say "start" this isn't when the first one actually bursts into flames, oh no. This is when they hack holes into the sculptures, lay the explosives and surround them with fireworks. Of course, the crowd has already gathered by then and trying to push them back to a safe distance is almost impossible. Every committee member has to have a dig at the statue and a push at a railing. The actual incendiary guys get more and more frustrated as interfering bigwigs trample their fuses and generally think they know better.
Finally the police and fire brigade arrive and something approaching order and a safe distance is achieved. Some 90 minutes later than advertised the local Queen ignites the first fuse and to a cacophony of bangs and sparks from the fireworks, somewhere inside the falla something bursts into flames. Except on the one we were watching it didn't. It just sort of smoked and smouldered. A few glasses of gasoline thrown onto the embers sorted that out!