In June 2017, life in Pedrógão Grande changed forever. I was only 12 years old, an age when the world should still be made of certainties, of carefree summers and peaceful nights. But that summer, the fire came without warning, without mercy, and took with it far more than trees and houses. It took lives, memories, and the very ground beneath the feet of an entire community.This book was born out of the need to tell, not just what happened, but what remained. Because the fires didn’t end when the flames were extinguished. They lingered in the ashes of the land, in the tear-filled eyes of those who lost everything, in the silent streets where laughter once echoed, in the sound of the wind blowing through the burned pine trees. And they stayed with me, too. I grew up with that shadow following me. But over time, I learned that there is strength in pain, that memory, when shared, can become a form of rebuilding.This work is, therefore, a testimony. It is made of fragments, of newspapers from that time, of meticulous timelines, of images captured today, eight years later, showing not only what was lost, but also what endured. It also contains interviews with victims of the fires, real people, with names, stories, and open wounds who agreed to share their experiences, often for the first time, so that silence would not triumph over truth.These pages are not easy to read. And they weren’t easy to write. Every photograph, every transcribed word, every news line was a confrontation with a past that remains present. But I felt it had to be done. Because forgetting is a second death. Because remembering is a form of justice. And because only by telling what happened, in all its pain and complexity, can we ensure it never happens again.This book is dedicated to all the victims of the Pedrógão Grande fires, those who left and those who remained. It is also a gesture of love for a land that suffered, but that did not allow itself to be erased or forgotten

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