Daral Boles
PORTFOLIO: DURING
First drought, then fire. This photo, taken along the Dão River, shows the shocking drop from April to July. The river’s former robust course is marked on the stone like a dirty bathtub ring.
This funnel cloud of smoke and ash, looming over the town of Seia on an otherwise sunny, blue-sky Sunday, was my first encounter with the fire.
As the fire moved north towards us, our sky changed. This view was taken midday; that’s not the moon but the sun, not clouds but smoke and debris obliterating the view.
Finally, the fire arrived, cresting the ridge and then racing down at terrifying speed.
Our last view as we were evacuated was of smoke and ash rolling over a stand of majestic chestnut trees clustered at the heart of our campus. These brave, or perhaps lucky, survivors of the 2017 conflagration were now threatened once more.
By the time the fire reached our part of the mountain range, we had been evacuated. From then on, we had to rely on news photos like this one and firefighters’ social media, obsessively refreshing our screens in what felt like a fever dream.
From our refuge in Gouveia, we followed the fire online as it approached and nearly engulfed the nearby town of Linhares da Beira with its distinctive twin-towered 11th century fortress.
By the time the fire reached Linhares, it was effectively out of control. Firefighters frantically soaked the town perimeter, as they had our campus, hoping the greedy fire would fly by on a superhighway of dried grass and Scotch broom. It worked, but barely, preserving the historic town, its Baroque church, Crusader-era castle, and tiny Jewish quarter.
This photo, shared on social media by the firefighters in real time, shows the fire truck parked on the path I used to ‘commute’ to main campus; behind it, seen through the flames, I circled the roof of my building as if to prove to my disbelieving mind: yes, the fire came that close to the place I called home.
On the other side of the ravine, residents of Freixo stood guard and watched the fire, ready to man their garden hoses and defend their homes.
