On the night of 8 September 2021, an intentional fire started in Sierra Bermeja, a protected area north of Estepona (Malaga), devastating uncontrollably huge tracts of inaccessible and steep forest, up to almost 10,000 hectares in just 6 days.
After those few days, what remained was dark, smoking, leaky, smelly earth; charred trunks, twisted with pain by the fire; hillsides stained black, grey and ochre, like burnt skin; naked, dead trees, blakened with horror, like charred skeletons; forests empty of life, mute, because silence enveloped everything. Not only trees died, but also their inhabitants. And Carlos Martínez Haro, forest fireman, trapped in that inferno that took on a life of its own, who decided that he was not going to stop until he killed everything, because someone gave him that chance. And he flew, and jumped from mountain to mountain and from one valley to another, scorching the earth and even the air. Only the rain stopped it. And it's frightening to think where he would have ended up if it were not for it. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)