The two fire trucks and the tanker cross the city of Matanzas. They are not speeding as they are almost always seen outside their stations. They are not running to extinguish a fire, they come from defeating one.
Many firefighters have not wanted to leave the area of operations in these five days of firefighting at the Supertanker Base; people have seen them very little, only on television. And now, watching them move forward in their vehicles, so vulnerable in their fatigue and so great in their resolve, so deadly and so titanic, something stirs in the chest.
One goes ahead first and claps his hands. And the whole street joins in, everyone stops what they are doing to clap and applaud those who have dispelled the threat from the horizon. Many cry.
The fire is under control, there is no longer danger, they are working to extinguish small outbreaks; and Matanzas, Cuba, those who love this Island well, embrace each other, a single thank you for the heroism that worked the victory over the most tremendous adversity.
We must say thanks to the firefighters who after the scare of the first dawn, and even with superficial burns -the ones that hurt the most, according to the caumatologists who are in the field-, they kept going and going until they were close to the superhuman.
Thanks are due to those young people who arrive at the Advanced Medical Post with heat stroke, dehydrated; and who, after the shower, tell the doctors: "I'm all right now, I'm going back;" and to the couple of Venezuelans who ask for some cream for their injured skin and refuse to lie down on the stretcher to be assessed, "because we have to go back; Cuba and Venezuela are the same thing, comrades."
Thanks are due to the young CUPET worker who, in the early hours of Saturday morning, while he was being lifted from the ground to be saved after the explosion, shouted: "Not me, him" and pointed to someone who had been left behind, but it was already too late.
Thanks must be said to the men and women who remained at their posts at the Supertanker Base, and in the air above it, knowing that, at the warning of danger, when the flames came, the only alternative was to run or fly away, trusting to do it fast enough, far enough.
The feat is the result of sweat, tears, sleepless hours and also fear, which is the fuel of the brave. Inside and outside the industrial zone of Matanzas there have been and there are efforts of all ages, hierarchies, professions. Thank you! We must say thank you. We owe them a lot.
