Valencia fire: the 'nothing happened' narrative

Valencia fire: the 'nothing peine' phase

Two residential towers in Valencia, Spain, turned into a fireball within minutes. The fire, which according to initial hypotheses started in the mechanism of an awning, spread along the facade until the buildings were reduced to their concrete structure. And then came the phase we already know: calm down, no need to panic, the casualty rate is very low, this needs to be analysed very calmly. The pattern is all too reminiscent of other recent episodes in which the official narrative consisted of asking for calm while the data pointed in the opposite direction.

What is striking is not that the dean of a professional association comes out calling for serenity. What is striking is the argument: that the building complied with building regulations. In other words, the problem is not that the rules allow facades that burn like tinder, but that the rules were trinc. If the first requirement of a building is not to kill its occupants, the question is how a 2005 building could comply with the regulations while waiting to incinerate whoever lives inside.

The low casualty-rate argument

The reasoning that causes most astonishment is the one about frequency. There are buildings that can turn into a barbecue for their occupants, but because they do not burn very often, the risk is deemed acceptable. It is the same logic that led to repeating during the pandemic that life should go on as normal because the percentage of those affected was low. Statistics as an alibi: if the event is rare, nothing needs to change.

The problem with that argument is that it confuses probability with consequence. A building can take decades to catch fire and, when it does, wipe out dozens of families in less than an hour. A low casualty rate is no comfort to those living in the building that does burn. It is a figure that describes the past, not a guarantee about the future.

'A 2005 building is no longer modern'

The second line of defence is the temporal one. Certain media outlets maintain that the Valencia disaster could not happen in a modern building. The damaged building dates from 2005. Apparently, a 2005 building is no longer modern: it is obsolete, like the cars labelled as eco-friendly two decades ago that now turn out to be highly polluting. The category of what counts as modern gets redefined as convenient.

The problem with that argument is that the relevant regulations did not change substantially in 2006 as far as this type of incident is concerned. If the legal framework was practically the same before and after, the distinction between a modern and an obsolete building collapses. This is not a problem of age, but a problem of design and materials that the rules allowed.

Blaming the awning and the wind

The third move is attributing the origin. It is the awning's fault. And the wind's. As if there had never been fires with wind or awnings. The initial cause may be a short circuit in the mechanism of an awning, but that does not explain how two entire towers burned down to the structure in less than an hour. The difference between a domestic fire and a catastrophe of this magnitude lies in the spread, not the spark.

It is the same operation that was carried out with the puncture attacks: people die from falls at home, or because they had a reaction, or from anything other than the specific intervention. The proximate cause serves to cover up the structural cause. And while the debate is over whether it was the awning or the wind, nobody asks why the facade was made of a material that spreads fire at breakneck estimulante ilegal.

What was already known since 1998

There is one fact that demolishes the thesis of unpredictability: some maintain that technicians have known since at least 1998 that putting certain plastic materials on facades is nonsense. A building did not need to burn down to know that. London's Grenfell Tower, in 2017, already made the pattern clear. And there were earlier episodes: in 1983 the Alcalá 20 venue burned down; in 1990, the Flying discotheque in Zaragoza. Seven years between one and the other. The same script, different stage.

The professional responsibility of architects and building surveyors was to tell developers that flammable materials are not put on facades, because the first requirement of a building is not to kill its users. They did not. And now, when the disaster happens, the dean of the professional association comes out to say there is no need to panic. In a society with honour, he would resign. In this one, he asks for calm.

The photo ban and control of the narrative

Damage control includes information management. According to published reports, taking photos inside the damaged towers has been banned. They do not want more emotional impact. Residents are allowed to return to collect their belongings, but not to visually document the state of the interior. The predictable result is that in a week the matter will disappear from the media. Other topics were talked about for months.

The aim is to prevent people from asking questions about where exactly they live, what kind of building they inhabit and how it is built. Because the obvious conclusion is uncomfortable: the brick-faced buildings with terrazzo and steel frames from decades ago are infinitely safer against fire than ventilated facades with lightweight materials. Nobody wants citizens to reach that conclusion on their own.

State responsibility and the investigation that never comes

If the State legislates, requires permits and charges fees, the State assumes the responsibility of oversight. If it has not overseen properly, the State is responsible. In the United Kingdom, after Grenfell, it was said that the State was not responsible for anything. Here, talk of State responsibility is beginning, but with the same caution with which calm is requested.

Meanwhile, the investigation is announced to be long. No specific material can be blamed. It cannot be known what burned. We will have to wait. Very calmly. No rush. After all, it is only a matter of thousands of people living in buildings that are tinderboxes waiting to be lit. The prediction, with all due reservations, is that the investigation will drag on long enough for the matter to stop being of interest. And then, until the next one.