28 April - 4 May 2011
www.euroweeklynews.com
The ‘Cursed Fire’
of Laroya mystery
By Jennifer Leighfield
LAROYA is a small town in
Almeria with less than
150 inhabitants, located
eight kilometres from
Macael in the Sierra de los
Filabres.
In 1945, it was the
scene of some
unexplained fires which
seemed to appear from
nowhere.
It all began on the hot
afternoon of June 16,
1945, when 14-year-old
Maria Martinez was
playing in the
countryside. A thick fog
had been covering the
town for several days.
Suddenly the girl’s
clothes caught fire.
Farmhands working at the
Cortijo Pitango were
alerted by her screaming
and rushed to put out the
flames.
When her mother came
for her, Maria spoke of a
blue ball of fire which had
landed on her apron.
Her mother put her to
bed, but while she was
sleeping the same thing
happened again, although
the fire did her no harm.
Scene of mystery: Small town of Laroya.
Adaptation and translation by Jennifer M Leighfield, from Alberto Cerezuela, Enigmas y Leyendas de Almeria, Ed. Circulo Rojo,
6th edition, May 2009. www.editorialcirculorojo.com
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What they didn’t know
was that at the same
time, and until the fog
cleared at around 11pm,
other fires had broken
out spontaneously at
farmhouses in the area,
causing no harm to
anyone, although there
was considerable material
damage.
Clothes would catch fire.
Groups of people began
to search the area for the
culprit and the Guardia
Civil from Macael were
called in, but they quickly
realised this case was out
of their league when the
jacket one of them had
left on a hook burst into
flames. The Civil
Governor was alerted and
specialist engineers were
sent to the town.
On June 23, a week
after the first fire, another
one broke out at another
farmhouse in the town,
and this was followed by
several more in the
coming days, all at local
farmhouses.
The engineers’ first
hypothesis was related to
the strange cloud which
had been in the area, as a
similar phenomenon had
been reported in
November 1741, when a
cloud reached the
mountains of Almeria City
and burning sparks fell
from the sky, setting
crops alight. However,
they had come from an
Italian volcano.
In this case, the cloud
disappeared but the fires
continued. Local people
took all of their
belongings out of their
homes, worried that they
would be destroyed, and
the local priest rang the
church bells to alert
people.
Some people began to
speak of a legend in
which a Muslim man was
burned alive by the
Inquisition in the same
place where the first fire
appeared. Others said it
was the work of the devil
because there was a
smell of sulphur, or spoke
of having seen the figure
of a ghostly boy
surrounded by flames
floating in the air above
the town.
The same day the
engineers left the town,
June 30, the fires began
again. Surprisingly, the
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first victim was again
Maria Martinez, who was
working in the fields with
her father when her dress
caught fire.
Later that day, a police
corporal who owned a
nearby property also
found his coat catching
fire, and for the following
days, the ‘cursed fire’, as
locals now called it,
continued to wreak
havoc around the town,
and Maria Martinez saw
for the fourth time how
her clothes suddenly
caught fire.
Locals said the fire
seemed to have a will of
its own, as when one was
put out, another would
break out elsewhere.
Some people claimed to
have seen a strange light
just before the fire, others
spoke of fog or smoke,
and some said they
smelled petrol or sulphur
while the rest only
noticed the smell of the
items which were burning
at the time. Putting water
on the flames only made
them spread more, and it
proved more effective to
cover them with blankets
or stamp on them.
On July 7, 1945,
engineers returned to
investigate, believing that
there might be deposits
of oil underground. But
when the fires started to
occur in front of their very
eyes, the dress of another
little girl burst into flames,
and, in one case, their
equipment was reduced
to cinders, they fled the
town, never to be heard
from again.
The fires were no
longer mentioned in the
national news, mainly due
EWN 41
Axarquía - Málaga East
Alberto Cerezuela’s book retells the story.
to the censure of the volcanic activity, gas
Franco regime, and, pockets rising into the air
shortly afterwards, even and bursting into flames
the local press ceased to and planes flying over the
report on the strange area with chemical
goings-on. products, the truth is that
The fires stopped to this day, no-one knows
suddenly after a while, for sure exactly what
but, later, petrol was happened in Laroya.
found at the farmhouse
where Maria Martinez
lived and the Guardia Civil
began to investigate.
However, on August 11,
1945, Maria confessed that
she had put it there herself
in the hope that engineers
would return and explain
once and for all what had
caused the fires.
Approximately 15 years
later, Maria committed
suicide, and within a few
days, so did her sister and
her brother, who was
found hanged at the
same farmhouse where it
all began.
Although there are
plenty of theories about
what caused the fires,
including spontaneous
combustion, magnetic
properties of the soil,