It was a scary night for inhabitants of upper Ajijic when a brush fire broke out Saturday, May 18 around 9:30 p.m.
Strong winds caused furious flames to flare up, quickly spreading toward the string of homes situated nearest to the foothills.
Neighbors had already mobilized to battle the blaze with buckets of water and shovels by the time two units from Chapala’s fire department arrived on the scene, accompanied by a water tanker and ambulance. With experienced firefighters and ordinary citizens working arduously shoulder-to-shoulder, the fire was completely extinguished by 1 a.m.
The conflagration was limited to a patch of undeveloped land measuring about 100 by 300 meters located just above Calle Venustiano Carranza in the area between Calles Colón and Juárez. According to eyewitnesses and assessment by Protección Civil y Bomberos (PCyB), the fire was caused by an unidentified person who was illegally burning refuse under cover of dark. If named, the responsible party could be slapped with a fine for violating a municipal ban on trash burning. The city’s Ecology Department is investigating the matter.
PCyB reports that while no homes were damaged, the flames came close to igniting the plastic roof of an outdoor terrace standing on a nearby property. Three of the volunteer firefighters were treated for intoxication from smoke inhalation and another suffered a twisted ankle.
In what has been a taxing season for local bomberos, the Ajijic fire came close on the heels of the prolonged forest fire that struck the steep and extended mountain range that divides the north shore from Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos.
Over the past weekend, the firefighters tackled brush fires at four other points within the municipality’s boundaries. On Tuesday, May 21, PCyB was called in to backup the Ixtlahuacán fire department in a ten-hour effort to stamp out the blaze that destroyed a plastics recycling facility in Atequiza. And shortly after finishing at dawn, they were summoned to assist at the site of fiery collision on the Macrolibramiento, where a vehicle had plowed into the back end of a double tractor trailer.