The rain cools the burning in the celebration of the Fallas de Valencia that longed to return to normality

The rain and the cold have cooled tonight the Cremà de las Fallas in Valencia, eastern Spain, the tradition of burning the satirical and fantasy art of a festival that this year returned with enthusiasm and hope to a relative normality after the pandemic but that have been conditioned and affected by the Celia storm.

And they have been precisely two failures dedicated to the consequences of climate change, warnings of global warming and the need to move towards sustainable developmentthe municipal one in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and the nearby one in the Jerusalem Convent, which have attracted more attention when it comes to undergoing the purifying fire ritual that heralds the arrival of spring.

This Saturday, the Cremà has been carried out by the bad weather that dominates the fallera week and has left these festivities declared Intangible Heritage of Humanity as the rainiest and with the fewest hours of sunshine in 84 years, which has also translated into cancellations of hotel and hotel reservations for a weekend that promised to return to pre-pandemic economic figures.

Six months after the last Fallas – those of September 2021 that burned the monuments that could not burn in March 2020 due to confinement nor in March of the following year due to the restrictions of the pandemic-, thousands of people have taken to the streets, with umbrellas and coats, to see the 766 fallas burn -between large and children- scattered throughout the city and surroundings, which this year They added up to a total budget of 12.5 million euros.

After the children’s Cremà -which has left to remember the agony of the municipal falla, which could not be lit due to the rain and the wind-, the large fallas have begun to burn in each neighborhood at ten o’clock at night, at the sounds of the music bands and between fireworks, and half an hour later it was the turn of the one chosen as the best monument of 2022, that of the Jerusalem Convent with the motto “2030” and the work of Pere Baenas.

With a budget of 315,000 euros, this falla made an allegory, imposing and full of chromatic and symbolic richness, about the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDG) to save the planet from human excesses, and it has once again become one of the the most visited fallas, like those of the rest of the Special section, those with the highest investment and spectacularity.

Among the latter was another of the most admired, the “Check” of the Pilar falla (second prize) which housed one of the most viral ninots this year due to the war in Ukraine, that of Vladimir Putin playing bowling with Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, and who like the rest has been burned to the ground.

And at eleven o’clock at night it was the turn of the municipal falla, in the middle of the Town Hall square -the “zero kilometer” of the Fallas promenade and where the most massive mascletaes are fired- and that this year, with a budget of 205,000 euros (paid for by the City Council) and the work of Alejandro Santaeulalia and the urban artist Dulk, had as its environmental motto the phrase “Protegix allò que estimes” (protect what you love) immortalized by Jacques Cousteau.

The monument was a hymn to Nature full of endangered animals and built with sustainable materials to warn of the risk of many species of flora and fauna disappearing, such as the huge polar bear with a sad and uncertain look that has become one of the emblems of these Fallas.

Under the rain and before the emotion of the biggest fallera, Carmen Martín, and her court of honor, along with authorities such as the president of the regional government, Ximo Puig, the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, and the mayor of Valencia , Joan Ribó, the fault has burned without problem and in five minutes it has become a pyre before the eyes of thousands of people who packed the square and its surrounding streets.

This year, by popular vote, the groups “Fantástica indumentaria” (by Carlos Carsí for l’Antiga de Campanar) and “Mare mòbil” (by José Gallego for the Jerusalem Convent) have been saved from the fire, and will become part of the Museum faller.

La Cremà is being monitored and served by a reinforced fire department that pays special attention to the effects of the wind to avoid damage to facades or street furniture.

Now comes the turn of the 1,400 workers of the extraordinary cleaning service that the City Council has set up so that the waste from the burned faults is collected throughout the early hours and the intense street life that has taken place these days, despite the weather being so unpleasant and that has forced the suspension of festive and pyrotechnic acts.

With the uncertainty before the irruption of the economic crisis that is already derived from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Fallas world, which had taken a breather with these festivities to try to return to pre-pandemic normality, faces the Fallas of 2023 with the forecast of reducing your investment, which can affect all the sectors that depend, throughout the year, on this universal festival. (I)