Alerted by smoke and a network of Facebook friends, famed mezzo-soprano Kimball Wheeler twice drove up a mountain near her home on Guadalajara’s south side to drop off supplies for people fighting the huge fire that raged in the Primavera Forest April 21 to 26.

The fire started on Saturday, April 21 with some illegal trash burning on the edge of the Bosque La Primavera Protected Area where I work.  By Monday morning, it was burning out of control in many locations and a very well organized response was underway.

Nervous lakeside residents should not be alarmed to be roused from their sleep early Thursday, May 3 by a barrage of loud explosions.  It will simply be the signal for the start of celebrations held on the Feast of the Holy Cross.

Aged 11, Jose Humberto Romano Jimenez lost his mother in the Guadalajara gas explosions of April 22, 1992. A year later, he was crowned by British tabloids as the “adopted son” of the Prince of Wales.

In a quirky historical twist, two celebratory days in the first week of May (Dia del Trabajo and Cinco de Mayo) had their origins in the United States and Mexico respectively, but are today more widely observed in the other country.

April 22, 1992, 10.03 a.m. Manhole covers begin flying from the streets of Guadalajara’s Reforma district. White smoke streams out from the sewers.