Intense rainfall was recorded in several locations. Credit: Smial / Creative Commons
A torrential downpour disrupted Denia’s float parade on Saturday July 12, despite the event going ahead following several meetings between Denia Town Council and the local Fallas board. This was in spite of a yellow weather warning that remained in place until 9pm. The problem arose when Aemet later upgraded the alert to orange, forecasting up to 50mm of rain in an hour. Even so, the event—featuring hundreds of participants, many of them young people and children—was not cancelled.
The heavy rainfall struck at around 8.15pm. Those taking part in the parade scrambled for cover under umbrellas and building eaves. There were visible expressions of frustration and anger, as Fallas groups had spent months preparing their floats, which were left abandoned and drenched in the streets of the city centre. The parade had barely advanced a few metres. Members of other groups, however, chose to face the situation with good-natured resignation, continuing to sing and dance as best they could under cover.
Following the escalation to an orange alert, the town hall announced at around 8pm that the remainder of Saturday’s Festa Major programme would be cancelled, including the Ana Guerra concert and the mobile disco scheduled in Torrecremada. These activities, it stated, were incompatible with the orange warning. But for the float parade, the announcement came too late. The local Fallas board has since said it will meet with the various groups to agree on a new date for the parade. It has already ruled out Saturday 19 July. Unsurprisingly, no prizes were awarded either, as most groups had barely begun their procession.
The weather forecast had predicted heavy rain across the Marina Alta region, which remained on orange alert into Sunday—and the forecast proved accurate.
From north to south along the Costa Blanca, intense rainfall was recorded in several locations: in Denia, large hailstones were accompanied by strong gusts of wind, thunder and lightning; in the waters off Javea, several waterspouts were sighted; and in Pedreguer, a lightning strike sparked a forest fire that was later extinguished by emergency services. Calpe also experienced significant rainfall.
Lightning strike sparks forest fire in Pedreguer
A powerful thunderstorm, accompanied by intense lightning, developed around 2pm on Saturday in the Marina Alta region, as the weather front known as a DANA moved in—just as meteorologists had predicted. The storm caused collateral damage, the full extent of which is still being assessed. One lightning strike triggered a forest fire in Pedreguer.
Emergency services from the Generalitat confirmed around 2.20pm that the blaze had been caused by a lightning strike.
The 112 emergency coordination centre deployed both ground and aerial firefighting resources, including two units of the Generalitat’s forest firefighters, two fire engines, two teams from the Alicante Fire Brigade and one aircraft. The fire was officially declared extinguished at 3.17pm, according to 112.
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