Hogueras in flames

On the last day of the Alicante festival Hogueras de San Juan (bonfires of St John), the elaborate wood and paper sculptures which I showed you photos of in an earlier post, are set alight and burned to the ground.

A few hours before the action at midnight, the organisers of each bonfire string up the sculpture with firecrackers for the big moment and prepare the site.  These firecrackers spark alight the combustible materials and add noise for effect! (You should know the Alicantinos by now!)  When I see the sculptures like this it makes me a little sad knowing that the fiestas are drawing to a close and that people's hard work are about to go up in flames!

But the best is about to begin...

Firemen hook up their hoses and prepare the safety as even though its a fun thing to watch the hogueras burn, it is taken very seriously.  There are over 90 bonfires in the city and obviously not 90 fire trucks to be able to attend all at the same time so they have a schedule and each team attend various, one after the other.

Not long to go now!

People chose an hoguera sculpture that they want to see on fire and they get their spot around it about half an hour before midnight.  One of the most popular ones is situated in front of the market, and loads of people go because if its central location in the city... and also because you can see the Monumental Palmera from there!  This is a huuuuuge firework in the shape of a palm tree that is let off at midnight from the top of the Santa Barbara castle (Castillo Santa Bárbara) and signifies the start of the Cremá, the lighting and burning of the 'official' bonfire in front of the town hall.

(Sorry I couldn't get it all in the photo and the tall buildings of Alicante were blocking my view a little!)

The organisers take it in turn to start their fires, usually beginning with a small firework display and the loud firecrackers so that people further away know which bonfire is about to be lit next.

Then it burns...

...and the firemen control it every second, dampening down adjacent buildings and controlling the collapse of the tall internal structures of the bonfires.

(Yes, I am showing you different hogueras being burnt by the way.  I watched 4 burn this year.)

It is quite warm here during these fiestas at the end of June, even at night.  The fire is incredibly hot and you really can feel it from quite a distance.  It makes me wonder each year how the buildings close by and the street signs and furniture can stand that heat.

(You can see in the photo above that some are already getting back to their eating, drinking and dancing for the final hours of the fiestas).

But once the bonfire is totally under control and dying out, some people at the front shout requests at the firemen for "agua, agua, agua...".  The firemen turn their hoses on them and soak them completely!  It's great fun being squirted by a fireman's hose and the cool water is very welcome on the hot nights here!  

Yes, it looks completely crazy and it is but it's great fun.  Every year we put our swim wear on and an old t-shirt that we don't mind getting dirty (as the ash falling from the sky can stain your clothes!).  I'm a bit old for that now though.

In some of the smaller hogueras there are not so many people as the neighbourhood is smaller with less participants so you can usually get a good spot if you like to be near the action.  Once there were just 3 of us in front of a fireman with his hose pointed up while we were jumping up and down about a metre in front of him in the spray... Simple fun. I actually think that the firemen enjoy it even more than us!  

If you do come one year, you may hear people shouting rude words at the firemen, which I will not repeat here.. It's just part of the tradition and very funny, and this is what make the firemen respond with their hoses!

To finish off the show at some of the hogueras a marching band plays sad 'final' songs.

And that's it for another year.  Visitors are always astonished at how quickly all evidence of the fiestas get cleared up and the streets cleaned and back to normal.  Teams work all night to clean the streets for the next working day.  I left the last one (and there were more still being lit as I made my way back home) at 3.30am and by the next morning there is no evidence of there ever being a crazy firework and bonfire party in all the streets of Alicante.  Come and see for yourself!

p.s. that's not really the end of the fun in the fiesta month of June because on the very next night, the international firework competition starts.  More in the next post.