A village of 197 residents and fires nobody could explain: the story of ‘Los Fuegos de Laroya’
Laroya, with 197 residents, turned the mystery of its 1945 fires into a mountain route. The fourth edition, with Club Cóndor, is on 21 and 22 November.
Automatic translation: this article was translated with artificial intelligence from the original in Spanish. Read the original
In the summer of 1945, wheat and straw were burning in the fields of Laroya without anyone being able to explain why. Eighty-one years later, those fires give their name to an event that brings hikers every year to the paths of the second-smallest village in the Valley, with 197 residents according to the padrón (municipal register) of the INE, Spain’s National Statistics Institute, as of 1 January 2025: only Cóbdar has fewer. On 21 and 22 November comes the fourth edition, the 4th Encuentro de Montaña ‘Los Fuegos de Laroya’ (‘The Fires of Laroya’ Mountain Gathering), organised by the Club de Montañismo Cóndor (Cóndor Mountaineering Club) and Laroya Town Council.
An unsolved mystery
According to the account compiled by Turismo Almanzora, it all began on 16 June 1945, when some piles of wheat started to burn for no apparent reason. A group from the Guardia Civil (Spain’s Civil Guard) travelled to the village without being able to explain those fires, and experts arrived from all over Spain. A report by the experts, dated 30 June, ruled out volcanic activity, electrical phenomena and the heat of the sun, and concluded that “there is no definite cause to which all the events that occurred can be attributed”.
But the fires continued. “The flames are greenish-red in colour and of low intensity, so they are easily put out,” the newspaper ABC reported on 7 July about new cases at some cortijos (farmhouses), as reproduced by Turismo Almanzora. They stopped when that summer ended, recalls Almería Provincial Council, which speaks of phenomena that “kept Spain on tenterhooks”. Today, a flame-shaped monument commemorates them in the village.
Walking where it all happened
That monument was the starting point of the first walk, on 21 October 2023: around forty people, 24 kilometres and a rice dish at the end, according to La Comarca Noticias. Since 2024, the Club de Montañismo Cóndor has been behind it.
“It’s about enjoying the landscape and the nature of the Laroya Valley. We pass through the spots where the events that gave this route its name took place,” Antonio Sánchez, the person in charge of the activity, explained in 2024. The map of the long route published by the organisers passes through places such as Reul Alto, the Pitango cortijo or Estella. In that hamlet, according to the account compiled by Turismo Almanzora, there were in 1945, “at the same time, three outbreaks of fire on the roof of a building”.
Almost half a century of mountaineering
The Club de Montañismo Cóndor was legally registered in January 1977, and on its website it sums up its origins like this: “Mountaineering becomes the seed of what Cóndor is.” And it knew Laroya before the walk: in 2011 it was already organising routes on foot and by mountain bike through the Molinos de Laroya (Laroya mills) and Reul Alto, and in 2012, to celebrate its 35th anniversary with its Club Day, it chose a spot “in the heart of the Sierra de Los Filabres, in the Paraje del Reul Alto (Laroya)”.
Two days in the Sierra de los Filabres
This year, the walk becomes “a big gathering devoted to the mountains and the different ways of experiencing them”, in the club’s words. On Saturday 21, from 16:00 to 18:00, there will be an introduction to Nordic walking, an orienteering game around the village with a mobile app, and Yoga Walking, which combines walking, breathing and yoga exercises. On Sunday 22 two routes set off: a self-guided one of about 20 kilometres for hikers and runners, at 8:30, and a guided one of about 8, at 10:00. It all ends with a communal lunch.
There are 150 places, 75 per route, and online registration is open until Sunday 15 November, unless places run out sooner. It is an open-participation walk in the Liga Ibérica de Senderismo (Iberian Hiking League), and its routes mainly cross the municipal area of Laroya, with some sections in Sierro and Macael.
Why it matters in Laroya
Laroya stands at an altitude of 860 metres and is seven kilometres from Macael, according to the gathering’s website. The gathering’s 150 places are equivalent to three in every four of its residents. In a place like this, every visit counts: these are people who walk its hills, who share a table in the village and who take its story away with them.
Nor is it the only way Laroya tells who it is. Since 2024, every spring, the ‘Descubre Laroya: De Cervantes a los Fuegos’ (‘Discover Laroya: From Cervantes to the Fires’) day has explored its history and customs with actors and musicians, from the moros y cristianos (Moors and Christians) to the cuartetas, “rhymed verses on topics from the municipality”, as the Provincial Council describes them.
From elValle Actualidad, we can only celebrate that a village of 197 residents has turned the mystery that made it famous in 1945 into a reason to head up into the mountains.
