The legendary bakery “La Unión” burned by flames during the first hours of this Saturday in the town of Tolhuin, in Tierra del Fuego. The work of the Firefighters personnel could not prevent the expansion of the fire that quickly took over the entire property.
Emilio Sáez, owner of the historic bakery, arrived minutes after the fire started seeing how the effort of years of work was destroyed. “A story is gone”, he declared moved to local media.
“We are 28 families behind this place, what happened takes my breath away. It is so much pain because there are so many memories in this place, I never imagined that this could happen to me, I have more desire to cry than to speak, ”said Sáez in dialogue with TN.
The fire started in the kitchen sector and quickly spread, with all the local firefighting units having to work not only in trying to control the fire, but simply in preventing it from spreading to neighboring houses, all wooden cabins, for so the risk was very high. The expert reports will determine the causes of the devastating loss.
Fortunately, no people were injured and the firefighters managed to save the neighboring houses, but there was absolutely nothing left of this great piece of history of the town of Tolhuin.
As happened to thousands of merchants in the country, 2020 was a difficult year for the owner of “La Unión” who in September decided to close his historic store. The coronavirus claimed a new emblematic complex that its owner started up 37 years ago “when we were 100 inhabitants in Tolhuin,” he told Clarín.
Tolhuin, a town located between Ushuaia and Río Grande, has 9,000 inhabitants. An imposing lake and paradisiacal places very visited by tourism. How the two most important cities of Tierra del Fuego are “closed” to visitors, “Tolhuin is a desert. Not a soul passes by here. So we can’t work. Sometimes we even have to throw away merchandise because we don’t sell it to anyone. Buses, combis, private cars used to stop here. In a long weekend we got to serve 5,000 people. But this became a desert. It reminds me of the time we opened when my dad knocked on the counter so that there is a little noise ”.
“Here nobody supports the SMEs. And I tell them that the closing of the SMEs will drag everyone down. Nobody gets heated. Politicians have their salary and here most of them are public employees. They have not worked for months and the same. They charge their salary. I am not saying it out of envy. But that some time a center is thrown at us “at the private sector,” claimed Sáez in dialogue with this newspaper.
Visibly anguished by this reality that he never thought to live, Emilio Sáez assured: “This more than a company works almost like a cooperative. I don’t have the face to fire my employees. But we got together and we had to make a decision. We sold 20 percent, which is equal to nothing. And many times we had food left over that we ended up throwing away. It was a shame. So why continue. There are people who can go two years without working. Total the State takes over. But they want to give me a loan that I won’t be able to pay later. “
Although he maintains the hope of being able to return “to the ring”, he sees it as difficult but he still assured this newspaper that “the closure is not final.”
“This is a historic inn and it is my life as well. But, can someone hold it closed for seven months? They can’t hold it, neither here nor anywhere in the world,” he closed.
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