Maspalomas honours the career of its four most veteran firefighters

 

The Fire and Rescue Service (SEIS) of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council offered this Saturday, coinciding with the feast day of its patron Saint John of God, an official recognition of professional merit for their 25 years of service to firefighters Antonio González González (Loreto IV), Javier Armas Armas, Juan Andrés Coruña Medina and Santiago Mejías Ramírez.

 

The ceremony to honour the four longest-serving and still active civil servants took place solemnly on the esplanade of the Fire Station's own garage, officiated by the Sixth Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Security and Emergencies, José Carlos Álamo Ojeda, and by the Head of the Service, José Felipe Santana Rodríguez, in the presence of the First Deputy Mayor, Alejandro Marichal, and with the assistance of members of the Corps, retired firefighters, authorities of the Municipal Corporation, the highest representatives of the municipality's security forces and numerous family members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fire chief described the “tribute” to his colleagues as “a special day” for “so many years of service offered to the safety and well-being of the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana with dedication, commitment and love for the profession”. He also thanked the families for their “unconditional support during so many shifts and nights of uncertainty”, and encouraged “each of the members of the Corps to continue building an increasingly professional and more humane service”. José Felipe Santana also thanked the four distinguished firefighters who served as a special motivation for the Maspalomas Firefighters to recover this Saturday the festive commemoration of the day of their patron “after so many years”, since it stopped being celebrated with the declaration of the Covid pandemic.

 

 

 

 

“We recognise the exemplary career of four professionals with a life of sacrifice and vocation. The medal they receive reflects countless days and nights of dedication, moments of risk and responsibility and countless acts of bravery and commitment to public service with society,” said José Carlos Álamo, who valued the level of material equipment of the municipality's fire department and the training of its agents. “We have an exceptional fire department, prepared with the utmost rigour and professionalism. Their continuous training and their ability to adapt to extreme situations allows them to cope with any contingency,” he said. He also highlighted “the leadership and vision of the head of the service, which has managed to place our fire department at a reference level within the world of emergencies,” and announced that the City Council is already working on achieving a new and modern fire station. “When things are done well, the obligation is to continue improving. The road may be long and complex, but the important thing is that we are on the move,” he said. He also stressed the value of teamwork in security and emergencies, and underlined the dignity of these services, provided with dedication and generosity. 

 

121 years as Maspalomas firefighters

 

Antonio González (Loreto IV), the one with the longest seniority, joined the Maspalomas fire brigade on 1 June 1988, while his colleagues Javier Armas, Andrés Coruña, and Santiago Mejías did so together on 5 May 1997. The first, "if all goes well", he says, will officially retire on 11 January 2026, at 59 years of age and 37 years of service, while his other three colleagues will do so in 2030 and 2031. Together they have 121 years of service as Maspalomas firefighters.

 

It also happens that Loreto, Armas and Coruña were famous athletes who practiced Canarian wrestling, the first two as tumblers for the old and famous Maspalomas Club, and that Santi Mejías did the same but as a versatile footballer in the defences or centres of the field for Maspalomas, Tunte and El Estrella.

 

 

 

 

Antonio Gonzalez (Loreto IV)

 

“Loreto is a woman’s name. My nickname comes from my grandmother’s name,” says Antonio González, born on January 11, 1967 in the San Francisco Mountain, in Agüimes. His seniority as a Maspalomas firefighter dates back to June 1, 1988. He values ​​the distinction for his services “with the importance of the job with which I identify and where I have made very good friends, some who are here and others who have already left, and where there have been good and bad times, good things and also bad things that will not be forgotten in life, such as complicated interventions in accidents. Even so, I am clear that if I were born again I would be a firefighter again, because I recognize that it is a profession that makes me happy.”

 

Xavier Arms

 

“All recognitions are appreciated. This one makes me proud,” says Javier Armas, born in Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura, on April 15, 1970. He remembers that he first set foot in Gran Canaria in 1987 “to do his military service,” and that in 1990 he returned to settle permanently in Maspalomas, where he played in the wrestling team until 1997 and to which he returned to retire from active sport in the 1999 season. From his years as a firefighter in this municipality he is left with “what I have experienced, with the experiences and friends I have had along the way. I am happy. They have been spectacular years. Firefighters provide many kinds of services, and the humble thanks from people are comforting. Since I was a child I wanted to be a firefighter, and I was right.” His most bitter experience in these years was the release of a young man who died in a traffic accident on the way down to the Castillo del Romeral, where the priest showed up and was forbidden to enter despite his insistence. “That experience and the human pain I saw moved me inside, because I was also a father and since then I pray that I never find myself in the same situation,” he says.

 

Juan Andres Corunna

 

“I was not a member of them, but I faced Loreto and Armas when they were together at Maspalomas,” recalls Andrés Coruña, a native of the San Roque neighbourhood, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, born on 21 November 1970 at the Clínica del Pino, “because the Materno was not there before,” he says. He received the award for professional merit in service clothes, as he had a shift this Saturday. He values ​​it as “a recognition of everything we have learned and developed in our day-to-day work, but also of the human aspect of the collaboration we provide to citizens in many and diverse situations.” He highlights over this period of time “the great favourable evolution that the fire brigade has had, both in terms of resources and material provision as well as the professionalism and training of its members, to become a leading and reference body in the Canary Islands. We cannot forget that we started with just a pair of boots and a jacket,” he recalls. The service that has had the greatest impact on him over the years was the rescue and stabilisation he carried out on a baby of just one and a half years old who was thrown off a hillside in a car accident in which the mother died. This accident occurred at the top of the Ayagaures ravine.

 

Santiago Mejias

 

“I am a man of few words. The award for these 25 years recognises the services that firefighters have provided whenever we have been required. Being a firefighter has been my profession for all this time. I chose it when I left football because I needed a boost and a job that was fully in line with my personality. I have always liked helping.” In his work report of these more than 25 years of service, two events stand out: the interventions in the rescue of the bus that had crashed with tourists in Ayacata and in the immediately subsequent accident in Cruz Grande of a helicopter whose blades collided with a high-tension cable and where the five people on board died, and the intervention of collaboration and help that he carried out together with other colleagues from Maspalomas to those affected by the flood in the Valencian plain. “In both I learned a lot by listening to people,” he says.