The five minutes of silence with which yesterday the city of Valencia honored the victims of the devastating fire in the Campanar neighborhood was broken with applause for Julián, the building’s janitor who helped save dozens of his neighbors. “I helped people down as much as I could, as much as my hands could do until the smoke left me.” This man did not stop knocking door to door until the firefighters told him to stop.
He does not remember how many times he went up and down the parallel staircase to the 12th floor, but he does remember the shock that opening the door to apartment 72, which is just below apartment 86, where the fire started, caused him: “A flash of flame came !” She grabbed the neighbor inside her, an older woman, with all her strength and pulled her out as best she could. The situation was repeated in another apartment where a man in a wheelchair resided. “There was black smoke coming down and the firefighters shouted at me: ‘Julián, don’t go up any more.’” It was then that the janitor stayed in the courtyard of the building. There the firefighters placed two fans.
The situation worsened as the flames grew: “The building’s plates fell and I had to get into a corner of the emergency door. “I was scared.” Crossing to the other side and getting to safety was not easy when the smoke covered everything and the fire devoured the building where he has worked for the last 15 years. “They told me I’m on vacation.” Now he doesn’t think about his future job.
After working in the building for so long, Julián knew many of the families. Upon meeting again after the accident, they thank him for his brave dedication in those critical moments. Manuel Fandos, one of the owners relocated to the Valencia Palace Hotel, explained how, thanks to the heroic action of his doorman, many residents left the building on time.
Like Fandos, yesterday there were 119 residents rehoused in the hotel waiting for the aid and housing provided by the City Council for those affected to become available. There are 99 adults and 15 minors who left with everything they were wearing and who now have to rebuild their lives after seeing how their belongings and memories burned.
