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Pau Costa Alcubierre

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Pau was born in Sant Julià de Vilatorta (Barcelona), on September 13, 1977. He had the first contacts with the world of forest fires at the University of Lleida, where he graduated in Forest Technical Engineering and where he obtained a Master's Degree in Analysis of Forest fires.

At the same time he began his professional career as a member of the Technical Unit GRAF, of the Fire Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya. This link allowed him to work as a forest fire analyst in southern Europe, and work on the European FireParadox project to write the guide The Prevention of Large Forest Fires adapted to the Type Fire.

Pau had shared the idea of ​​creating a platform to store knowledge of forest fires internationally, and it was he who wrote the first drafts of the project of what is now the Foundation. From the beginning, he became involved in the constitution of the Foundation and marked the great lines of work that, after a while, shaped the final project of this Foundation that today bears his name.

His ideology fully coincided with the foundational purposes, and this Foundation is impregnated with his values ​​as a professional and as a person, with his affable, close and very human character. For us it is very important that Pau continues to be part of this project, of his project.

Pau Costa Alcubierre, GRAF forest fire analyst died on duty in the fire of Horta de Sant Joan on July 24, 2009. Pau believed strongly in this project because of his experience throughout Europe in the management and fight in forest fires.

Fire of Horta de Sant Joan

On July 21, 2009 there was a fire in the Massif de los Ports in Horta de Sant Joan, Tarragona, Spain, in which five firefighters of the GRAF of the Generalitat of Catalonia lost their lives while working on the tasks of extinction.

Jaume Arpa - Jordi Moré - Ramon Espinet - David Düaigues - Pau Costa
About 4 in the afternoon of that day the fatal outcome occurred. There were many fires that we had shared with them over the years, and this became the last. In a very short time a firestorm put an end to their lives, but not their memory or the values ​​they transmitted.

In the same place of the accident a modest and at the same time intense monument was erected. It symbolizes many things on a personal level, but it also aims to keep in the memory of all of us who dedicate ourselves, in one way or another, to working on forest fires, which happened there; that phrase… “Learn from the past” that they knew so well was, is and will be key in the world of fires.

A burnt olive tree was chosen on the same day and in the same fire to immortalize them. Hardwood tree and great longevity that together with steel allows to bind their names as the team that formed that day. Steel that coming out of the earth symbolizes the force of nature. Crowning a torch raised in the air that also claims technical fire as a management tool and remembers that the forest takes five specialist firefighters, five people who knew what needs to be done to prolong life.

Paradoxical, yes, and also chaotic, contradictory and unfair, this is the forest sometimes, which skewed the life of those who dedicated themselves to managing the fire.

Peace and honor, the symbols that characterize the olive tree since time immemorial are what will be there year after year in that corner of Los Ports. Honor and respect for some great colleagues with whom we share times and days of fire, trips to see fires, to talk about the ecology of fire from the Pyrenees to the seafront, from Europe to America, from east to west and start over ...

Always attentive to the search for answers and always pending the most complex questions.

The Foundation is impregnated with the values ​​that they had always wanted to convey. This Foundation wants to pay tribute to all of them and collect their testimony so that it can endure over time.

We will continue what one day, many days, we share with you.

Tributes Horta de Sant Joan

Throughout these years, several commemorative actions have been carried out promoted by the Pau Costa Foundation to remember that tragic accident and make lessons learned available to the forest fire community.
Great Silence I Part
In 2014, the Pau Costa Foundation together with the production company Brutal Media, made the documentary 'El Gran Silencio. Horta de Sant Joan 'which gives voice to many people who experienced that episode of trapping first hand.

The documentary seeks to explain to society the problem facing the world of extinction by analyzing its causes and thus extract lessons from what happened in Horta de Sant Joan in July 2009.

Currently, it is available in four languages: Spanish, English, Catalan and Italian in our YouTube Channel.

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Horta 10
Horta10anys is a platform that collects, proposes, decides and coordinates the different initiatives to honor and remember the friends and family who left us on July 21, 2019 at the Ports fire in Horta de Sant Joan, David, Jaume, Pau, Jordi and Ramón.

The team of this platform consists of family members, firefighters, friends, related collaborators and entities such as the Pau Costa Foundation that provides logistics and more technical aspects. This is the concept and objective of Horta10anys.

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