In 2013 a fire broke out that was to burn its way through five counties, including my own of Pedralba. It would take 800 firefighters on the ground and 47 aircraft over four days to finally put it out. We knew something had started because the fire chief showed up in his helicopter, flying low while he assessed the situation.
The fire moved over and around our house, burning our hedges but not touching our house. The same thing happened to a lot of people, but we left only minutes ahead of the fire at 3:30 in the morning, convinced our home and everything in it was gone. That it survived intact we consider a miracle, for which we remain eternally grateful.
With that in mind, anytime we hear a helicopter flying low overhead everybody in the area stops what they are doing to concentrate on what the helicopter is doing.
This past Thursday, May 7th, two helicopters, a yellow one and a red one, moved into the area and started flying low, wide circles around my house. The yellow one then picked out a spot away from wires and landed, while the red one continued to circle before flying behind a hill, out of my sight and sound. I presumed he had landed as well. What the hell was going on?
I took my dog, Mini-Max, and drove over to the opposite side where I had a clear view of both craft.
The red one had not landed, but rather it was doing a steady hover over the river. After about five minutes it rose straight up with two figures hanging on a line, and it moved off to the east as it winched its cargo into the cabin. Then it made a wide circle from East back to West and returned to near its original hover spot.
After a short while the yellow one lifted off and circled left and took up a steady hover on top of a small hill that was behind where it had previously landed. Nothing happened for what seemed like about five minutes, but then a person was winched up to it, followed by a second person. They then moved off to the East in the direction of Manises airport.
Had we watched a dramatic river rescue or a training exercise? I accept that training is crucial, and I suppose it must be carried out somewhere, but I can tell you that whatever it was that we had seen, it had a maximum audience.
We had a period of very heavy and sustained rain recently that has resulted in the whole mountain range having broken out into wonderful bloom. It will be a long time before our trees come back but we have heavy ground growth.
We are still in Spring and temperatures are seriously higher than normal. That means an elevated risk of fire danger throughout the country; so a note of caution to everybody: Beware! Only You and I can prevent Forest Fires!
Copyright (c) 2015 Eugene Carmichael
