Tag Archives: Fire

Another fire on the border

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In February 2021, Javier Martinez Ruiz reported a devastating fire on the borderline near the Atlantic Ocean (see this post: The Basque-border on fire).

The same situation occurred on the 31st of July on the very other side of the border: at the Mediterranean coast, live witnessed by Corinne Gourgeonnet:

Not long after, she went – together with her son Arthur – to the scene to see if the bordermarkers were damaged or not. Well, they survived pretty well:

Arthur is the youngest one in our band of brothers (& sisters) of the border. He made a splendid introduction by swimming, together with his mother, in 2018 to the cave with bm602. See this post: Corinne & Arthur: swimming to bm602!

The Basque-border on fire

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Javier Martinez Ruiz informed me of a devastating fire on 20-21 February 2021 along the borderridge in the Basque country between bm001 and La Rhune. See also this news-article

He sent me some pictures and comparing them with my pictures of June 2020, you can see the destruction.

This is a picture of mine of bm002 from June 2020.

And this how Javier found the terrain back.

And this is bm008 in perfect order in June 2020.

And this how bm008 looked right after the fire. We see a damaged marker but Javier is not 100% sure that it is caused by the fire. But shortly before, it was still in good shape.

I’m reluctant to say it but for us, as border-enthusiasts, such a fire offers also opportunities as I experienced on 12-9-2012  at the other side of the Pyrenees. An impenetrable maquis-terrain burnt to the ground and could be easily explored afterwards.,,,

By the way: Javier is a remarkable man. Living in Irùn, he published in 1995 a profound study of the bordermarkers 1-196 (see my literature-list, Javier agreed to make it accessible as a pdf-download). He still visits every single year almost every bordermarker from 1 to 235.