He was the only one of his team who was even able to make it to the 8th floor, where the family was sheltering in the bathroom. But the numbers marking the apartment doors had melted, and flames were everywhere, making it impossible for him to find where the family was located amidst the dense smoke.
Right before fainting, he was able to get out of the hallway. Three days later, the fireman was still in the hospital receiving treatment from smoke inhalation and burns.
More stories of heroism quickly came to light, particularly that of the doorman, Julián.
Although he lamented, “I couldn’t get everyone,” countless neighbors spoke of him going floor by floor, particularly aiming for the apartments with elderly residents.
“Julián is the hero of Valencia, the hero of Spain, the one who everyone is greeting and embracing with tears, because of everything he did while the building burned,” said one report.
Julián himself gave a less dramatic account. “I went up because there was a lot of smoke … The fire took over the whole building so quickly.
“I set about helping the people get down… The fire went so fast. … First, I went for the elderly. … I’m here to help them. I’ve always been here to help them.”
“There came a point where the firemen didn’t let me go up anymore,” he said. And the people who call him a hero? “Boy. I’ve done this from my heart. I wanted to help them.”
Flammable cladding
The city of Valencia maintains a deep Catholic culture and tradition, with several thriving ecclesial movements. The celebration of St. Joseph is the highlight of the year, as each neighborhood collaborates in an artistic offering, and a multi-story statue of Our Lady is created with flowers in the city’s main plaza. Sunday would have been the start of the fireworks that mark each day of that annual celebration, with an early-morning pyrotechnic event getting the festivities rolling.
All of this has been postponed for a week, as the city observes the three-day mourning period. Food that had been prepared for those festivities and couldn’t be preserved was donated to local nuns who run a care home for the elderly.
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Meanwhile, talk continues about how and why the complex was consumed so quickly.
“It was worse than the unimaginable,” reported one off-duty firefighter who showed up to help, and fought against the fire from 6:30 p.m. until 5 the next morning. “It was hell on earth.”
Early reports suggest that the aluminum and polyurethane cladding of the complex — lightweight and effective in insulating against heat and cold — was flammable and led to the rapid spread of the fire, which crawled up the exterior walls of the building. It was also an uncommonly windy day in Valencia, which added to the speed of the flames. Construction of the complex was completed in 2009.
On the evening of Feb. 24, Archbishop Benavent celebrated the 8 p.m. Mass at Our Lady of Mercy parish, very near to where the fire occurred.
God is not far from human suffering, he said. “We don’t believe in a far-off God, in an unfeeling God. We believe in a God in solidarity with the suffering of humanity, and who has made his own in his Son Jesus Christ all the sufferings of society. We believe in a God who has experienced all of the sorrow of humanity and is not oblivious to this suffering, but in fact, has made it his own.”
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