Berga is preparing to celebrate its famous Patum in style, a party full of tradition, dance, music and fireworks. In this edition it is expected that 297 kilos of gunpowder will be burned, a figure similar to that of other editions. To guarantee your safety, the measures are maximum. The material for the Patum Infantil rehearsals arrives a month before and is guarded 24 hours a day. A week before the party starts, the rest of the material arrives.
Until two years ago, all the gunpowder was kept in the basement of the Town Hall and this was a danger. For this reason, it is now kept in a powder keg, located a quarter of an hour from Berga. During the party, the material is kept in a refrigerated container and guarded by a security guard. In the future, the City Council will adapt a warehouse in the city.
"Since there are many kilos of gunpowder, by law, it must be stored in an adapted magazine," explains the head of the municipal brigade of the Berga City Council, Martín Rodríguez. A powder magazine is a building adapted to store gunpowder and other explosives.
Hours before the celebration of the acts with fire, the pyrotechnic material must be moved from the powder keg to the center of the city. Once inside Berga, the material is stored in a refrigerated container. A security guard guards all the fuets with the gunpowder that is spent every day.
The powder magazine they currently use must comply with strict safety standards, such as fire detection and extinction systems, armored power lines, and at a sufficient distance from population centers and highways. "Every day they bring what is needed and put it in the refrigerated container," he details.
For the Complete Patum is when more gunpowder is needed. Specifically, 131 kilos are spent. According to data from the City Council, the budget to buy this material is about 45,000 euros.
A fuet takes about 3.5 minutes to burn. "Now they no longer fail as could happen years ago because it is more industrialized," explains the head of the Brigade, who recalls that before the entire process was done by hand and it was not known if the gunpowder had been pressed enough or if there would be less amount. In addition, the fuets arrive numbered from the factory and are distributed to the corresponding troupe. And once exploited, they must be returned to those responsible to check their traceability. "We have maximum control," Rodríguez remarks.
For the person in charge of the brigade, "the whole group is what makes the Patum" although he admits that the fire troupes are a key element. "It's an important part of the party and that's why you have to guard it well, especially for security but also because if there's a problem and we don't have fuets, the Patum wouldn't be the same."
