Once upon a time there was a fire

It was the 1st of January of 2016, everyone in Rodolfo’s and Prudencia’s home was taking it slow after the celebration of the new year. I was washing dishes, it was a home in the slums of the mountains of Itagui, a three story high wooden house surrounded by brick houses; unique in its style more akin to the wooden houses of Native-Colombians in the south of the country.

I was washing the breakfast’s dishes, minding my own when Carlitos, a grandson to the elder Prudencia and step grandson to the elder Rodolfo, who was by my side the whole time, called my attention to a plume of black smoke coming off the upper side of the mountain. I had to watch the smoke for a few instants before I was sure it was something really serious, and ran out of the house and up the cement stairs not without calling everyone else at the house before.

I had never been in the upper part of the neighborhood. I ran up the stairs like the wind, and when I got there, the flames where reaching higher than three times my height, my whole 1.70 meters No house was burning, just very tall grass, and grass burns intensely and it spreads fast, one house though was at peril of catching fire from behind.

I looked around and got my bearings in this new and furious scenario, my natural self took over command of me; “was there water available, where there any buckets at hand, who had a machete, was there anyone inside the house, who was volunteering, who was just watching, who was in shock?”

I heard myself asking for water in a loud voice, years of street training had prepared me for extreme situations, acting on instinct and solving things on thought speed.
- There’s no water, it is not coming up, we always have trouble with the water up here.
Replied a few voices. I looked to the origin of the voices and saw a public faucet and no water coming out of it.
- Shit, I thought.

I looked out for the volunteers, the partners, obviously, and asked about the owner of the house.
- He went away a while ago, he is a tailor and has his machines and fabrics inside.
- Who knows him? I Asked.
- Me, me, me, me…
- Are you friends with him? We need to go in and get everything out; can you keep it in your homes meanwhile?
- Sure we can take part of it.
- Sure we can help with some of it too.

The strongest of us volunteers did not hesitate and kicked the door off of its hinges, four or five of us went into the house, took out the sawing machines, the hanged fabrics, all flammable material. A young man went into the kitchen and came out telling us that there was a gas cylinder, the wall of the kitchen was exposed to the fire, and it was quite hot inside. Unanimously our voices said;
- We have to take the gas cylinder out.
Instants later the cylinder was out, we took out everything that could be easily moved, put it all in one place and the neighbors that offered themselves started taking everything into their homes, out of danger.

Rodolfo and his grandson Andres came up with machetes in hand, after the first shock there was order amongst volunteers, Rodolfo lent me one of the machetes and with other guys we went behind the house to cut everything that was flammable, instant sweat. There was an embankment, a wire fence and then the full fledged fire, we cleansed the small area between the house and the embankment. Another party was cutting a tall swath of grass to the right of the tailor’s house.

Some time later we could listen to sirens behind the fire, we could not see them, but it sounded like firefighters sirens, and a couple of minutes later up the hill came some cops to take over our mission, but no machetes just the usual vociferous tones of voices:
- Come on, come on, you have to get down off the mountain while the fire is under control.
We had done most of the job, and were doing fine by ourselves, quite professionally I might add.

I looked them in the eye, sweating and panting with the machete in my hand and told them:
- What are you talking about, there’s only four of you, you need us, look at what we have already accomplished. The cop in charge looked me back and admitted that they did need our help, they gave orders, we knew what we were doing, we were there first; all that collective effort could not be wasted.

Information about a big gas tank behind the fire got to us through the cop’s radios, the firefighters were doing their best to avoid the fire from getting to the gas tank. It was a while before the flames were under control, the volunteers avoided the fire from catching one side of the mountain, a sense of relief and a job well done could be felt in the air.

What a way to start 2016, those flames will always walk with me, the beauty, the strength, the height, the colors, the shapes and the raw power, no match, no bonfire I have ever set alight will ever come close to that fire, and being on the other side of starting a fire to keep from the cold, to cook a meal and doing my best, with others to rule it, to love it and control it’s might with respect, at least from my part.