Valencia fire exposes the cost of letting squatting fester

Valencia has once again been reminded that neglect rarely stays neatly contained. A fire that broke out in two ground-floor apartments in Benicalap, both occupied by squatters, forced 80 residents from two apartment blocks to leave their homes as a precaution on Thursday. The smoke was dense, the alarm immediate, and, mercifully, no injuries were reported.

The blaze was confined to the ground floor, but that hardly makes it a minor affair. Dozens of fire crews were deployed, and emergency teams remained in the area after the fire was brought under control. Police sources said the apartments were due to be cleared the same day under a court order, which gives the incident an unpleasantly familiar Spanish flavour: a problem left to rot until the state finally decides to act, and even then only after events have already turned ugly.

Investigators are now trying to establish whether the fire was deliberate, though other possibilities have not been ruled out. That is the sensible approach, even if it comes after the fact. The city’s mayor, María José Catalá, went to Picayo street and said some residents might not be able to sleep in their homes because of the smoke concentration. The council activated the Social Emergency Care and Emergency Support Service, known as SAUS, to help those affected and assess their needs.

Catalá also said firefighters were still working to extinguish the fire and rescue pets, and confirmed that some residents had already been taken to a municipal centre. She stressed that the eviction in the ground-floor properties had taken place earlier in the day, which only underlines how combustible the situation had become long before the flames appeared.

Residents in the area had already complained that living beside the squatters had become unbearable. They spoke of threats, filth and even faeces on the floor. That is not a picturesque neighbourhood dispute; it is a sign of a local order that has been allowed to erode until the emergency services are left to clean up the mess. Spain has a habit of discovering that public authority is much easier to praise than to enforce.

For Valencia, the immediate priority is obvious: make sure the displaced can return safely, and determine whether this was an accident or something worse. But the larger lesson is less convenient. When illegal occupation drags on, neighbours pay the price, property owners wait, and the state arrives late with a clipboard and a hose. That is not governance. It is damage control with better branding.

Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com