Carlos Mazón accompanied King Felipe and Queen Leticia on Monday during their visit to Valencia where they expressed their support for those affected by the Campanar fire in the residential apartments of the Campanar neighborhood and where they also showed their recognition to the emergency services who participated in the disaster.
The royals met in privately with a representation of residents of the two buildings affected by the fire last Thursday which resulted in ten fatalities and left more than 400 people homeless.
They also met with a group of fifty emergency workers who participated in fighting the fire and rescue attempts who they thanked for their outstanding efforts.
Jose Miguel Basset, chief inspector of the Service of the Valencia Provincial Fire Consortium, explained that the King has thanked him for the work carried out by all the fire departments, both that of Bombers Valencia and that of the Provincial Council of Valencia that provided assistance to their colleagues in the critical hours of the fire.
Basset said that the monarch recognized the difficulty of fighting the fire, as it was explained to him in considerable detail how the extinction was managed. In addition, he told Don Felipe and Doña Letizia “that it is not an isolated building, that there are many more similar buildings throughout the country. Therefore, we must consider the actions we must take because it has already happened in England, France and Singapore.
On the day of the fire, we did not know what we were coming to, but as soon as we saw the fire and its spread, we knew what material it was that we faced,” he explained.
Earlier in the afternoon the king and queen arrived at the Palau de la Música in Valencia, a few meters from the hotel where some of the relocated residents are located, where he met with several of those affected.
The private meeting with relatives of victims as well as those who have lost their homes took place in the strictest privacy. It was preferred that they stayed on the sidelines so that they did not have to see their burned homes again, as well as expose themselves again the media.
