“Fire on your landing.” Miguel Rodríguez received this call at his office at six o’clock and rushed to his car. He took 20 minutes to reach the scene, but his apartment on the seventh floor was already blazing. He collapsed to the floor, his hands over his head, watching from a distance as he realized everything he owned was about to disappear.
A life was sliced apart in minutes. His seventh-floor flat caught fire “like a match.” “The world collapses around you when you see fifty years of memories burn away. I have nothing left,” he says from his parents’ home. “Memories of a loved one, photos from a special trip… All gone forever,” he laments.
“Back to living with my parents”
Packed with emotion, he says he feels fortunate that no personal losses were suffered. “Thank God the damage is material and I can recover. I’m lucky to have my parents nearby; now it’s time for a spell living with them,” he explains.
Paring back to essentials, Miguel notes that his first instinct after losing everything was to buy basic items like toothbrushes and underwear. “One doesn’t consider these things until they’re needed,” he explains, recounting his first actions today.
“We take many things for granted in life, like a home, clothing, water for washing… until everything collapses, and suddenly you’re buying these things,” he adds after returning from the supermarket. It may sound trivial, but it is the first step to starting over.
Miguel now has to restart his life from scratch. He says he will move forward, that he will recover, but for now he hasn’t had time to process how drastically his reality has shifted.
“A firefighter with a daughter”
Miguel had been separated and had been renting that apartment for a year. His daughter would visit on weekends, and fortunately neither was home during the terrifying blaze.
In addition, Miguel is a volunteer with the Maestro Rodrigo festival committee, where another twelve people were affected, including several children. The festival hall opened its doors this morning to collect clothing, footwear, and hygiene products for the families in need.
What most surprised and angered Miguel was how quickly the building burned for a modern property. “We were told it was a technological building with top-notch qualities, yet it burned as easily as a box of matches,” he asserts.
Nightmare of fire and water
In truth, Miguel remembers little of the moments that followed, overwhelmed by shock and nerves. “All I saw was fire, water, and firefighters while I sat on the floor. The feeling I remember most is a terrible helplessness,” he says.
Who warned the neighbors and saved many lives was the doorman, who knocked on doors to evacuate residents as the fire spread, while firefighters arrived from a station nearby. “The firefighters were late to arrive, and I’m not sure why—perhaps they didn’t expect something so massive—but when they did come, they could only keep the neighboring buildings from catching fire, there was no way to extinguish the entire property,” Rodríguez recalls.