The people of Agramunt hold a family farewell for Omar, the worker who died in the fire.

AgramuntIt's 7:20 p.m. An audio message arrives. It's from the father. "I'm drowning, I can't take it anymore, I love you." The daughter hears these harsh words and shares them with her mother and the rest of the family. It's 7:25 p.m. The daughter answers. But the message no longer reaches her father's cell phone.

Agramunt, in the Urgell region, was blackened by smoke carrying the ashes of a raging fire burning a few kilometers away. "Everyone was screaming," recalls a person close to the family. They called out to the town square and the streets, looking for someone who would come and find them. They called out to their father, Omar, and to their boss, Jordi, the owner of the farm where they both worked. They began a desperate search that ended just as nightfall fell. Two young men from the village found two bodies. Omar's wife was nearby and also approached her. He remembers seeing the last rays of sunlight of the day and how, suddenly, darkness fell.

Omar, 52, was working in the fields and suffered from asthma. He began to notice he was choking at the first traces of smoke and called Jordi. The owner went to rescue him with an all-terrain vehicle and managed to find him. On the way back, however, they got stuck between the small walls of a field. They got out of the car, hid behind some rocks, trying to avoid the smoke and fire, and Omar sent the audio saying goodbye. It was 7:20 p.m.

Two stories

Their stories demonstrate the diversity of a single town. Jordi was the son of a long-standing, wealthy family from Agramunt, Esteve, who made a considerable fortune from farms and other businesses. Everyone knows them, and their house in Agramunt, with its vaulted porch, is one of the most visible in the town. Jordi was the eldest of five siblings and single. He was the "outlier," according to family sources. His father had just retired, and he was in charge of continuing to manage the family business. One of the first things his father, also named Jordi, said to those around him when he learned of his son's death was: "We're millionaires, but we've lost everything."

All Omar's family was looking for when they came to Catalonia was a better life and money. They left Colombia in December 2022 and chose Agramunt, a town where they already had family. He, his wife, and his daughters, ages 19 and 6, left. Everything was going well. He found work on Jordi's farm and had a residence and work permit. They rented an apartment in the historic center, right across from some pretty streets. The youngest daughter could take music lessons, and the eldest was able to move out with her partner. They paid for the apartment religiously and had managed to save some money to go on vacation to Valencia. They planned to leave on July 2, the day after the tragic fire. "They were an example of integration," lament municipal sources.

The Harvest

The deaths are tragic in themselves, but the drama, especially for Omar's family, also came later. They are Christians and wanted to take the body to Colombia for burial in their village. But the mountain of paperwork ultimately led them to decide to bury him here, in the Agramunt cemetery, after a ceremony in the church. They also didn't have the money for Omar's mother and brother to come. However, his family and Agramunt responded and started a fundraising campaign. In just one day, they raised the money to pay for the flights. The Colombian community of Agramunt, as well as other villagers, have been making contributions to make it a reality.

But there's more to the story. The woman's residence permit was linked to Omar's. Before the fire, she had found work cleaning a business and had already been offered a pre-contract. The fire interrupted that. However, the Generalitat (Catalan government) and the City Council are already working to ensure she has the necessary permits. Due to her father's death, the eldest daughter is also having trouble enrolling in a middle school. The administration is also working on this. They can pay the current month's rent, but they are also considering accessing assistance to continue paying. And they are receiving psychological support from village volunteers. Meanwhile, the youngest daughter, barely six years old, has started attending the village summer camp. "She needs some distraction," say family sources.

The Farewell

Jordi's family and friends said goodbye to her in a farewell ceremony at their ancestral home in Renant, a fifteen-minute drive from Agramunt. The house, surrounded by fields and animals, was filled with villagers the day after the fire, tending the livestock and cleaning up everything the fire had destroyed. Two days later, the farmhouse, with its blackened fields, is silent and solitary. Only the cattle ruminating can be heard.

Agramunt is a town of 5,600 inhabitants that was left on the brink of hell. It bore the brunt of the fire: the only two fatalities. The mayor of the municipality, Sílvia Fernández Tarragona, recalls that, from a high vantage point, she saw how her village had "disappeared." The black smoke consumed everything. "I thought Agramunt had burned down," she recalls. As mayor, she ordered a lockdown for her municipality at 7:16 p.m., and regrets that a territorial warning finally arrived at 8:04 p.m. After the worst hours, without power, in the darkness of the ash, the search for Jordi and Omar began, which ended with the worst possible outcome.