The trees burn each differently, the evil spirits who burn them all do it the same way: without thinking twice about the tragedy they cause, indifferent. I learned that each species of tree has a different resistance to fire, if I may be allowed the exaggerated simile, if not in living flesh, then almost in bark. She was a fifteen-year-old girl when a fire was declared, a euphemism for saying that someone or some caused it, in the mountain range that rises in front of the family house, the mountain range that you can almost touch by reaching out from the sunroom .
Half the mountain belongs to Galicia, the other half to Portugal, but the flames go where they want. In a few minutes a red streak of blood, of the blood of the trees, of the blood of the memory of those who had enjoyed them so many decades, perhaps centuries ago, powerless now in their graves, a line of fire took it all away as the The smell of burning hurt my neck, which was crying for lost paradise: even if they replanted the mountain I would not live, I was sure, to see again the forest that I took for granted and that had now been transformed into a cemetery. But to my surprise it wasn’t like that.
Oak trees need more than a fire to die. Within him remained the resistance that the following spring made them sprout again, and I saw that my grandfather was right: when nature put oaks here, she knew what she was doing, she knew that in spite of everything they would live. The pines, imported from other climates, were not reborn. The fire had consumed them. This was not his home. Then the eucalyptus hadn’t arrived yet…
I think about it while the flames devour the forests of Asturias, climb the mountains as if it were an excursion, a death walk. They say it has been provoked, no less than 91 outbreaks. Nature does not do this, it can send lightning, an electrical storm, but it does not walk around leaving at every step a seed for destruction. Who can want to kill a tree, the life that resides in it, those who see it and enjoy it, feel it and live it? Let an eternal curse fall upon these wicked.
