Pedro Luis Sirvent: "Genius and Figure"

Alicante continues mourning inconsolably the passing of Pedro Luis Sirvent in an accident at his pyrotechnics workshop. The master of fireworks leaves an indelible mark on the hearts of the foguerers and an entire city that will remember him with every shot in Luceros. Many friends have shared photos, memories, and anecdotes. Among them is Andrés Llorens -Nino- with whom he shared a path in the 1995 Management Commission.

Through Facebook, Llorens explained how they met in their early years, in the 80s, at the Sèneca-Autobusos bonfire, where Pedro Luis was president between 1987 and 1990. He also recalls his early steps as an artist with monuments in Princesa Mercedes or Doctor Bergez-Carolinas. But above all, he remembers Sirvent's passion for fireworks, which he focused on for his professional future, creating a school that "his children have recently taken over."

An emotional message in which he also recalls part of the pyrotechnician's personality that so often endeared him to the people of Alicante: "We will always remember your fun character, your mischievous smile, your comments full of irony, your sincerity, your generosity, and your friendship," says Llorens, who accompanies his text with a photograph from May 10, 1998, when he shook Salamanca during a gathering.

He was not the only one to use social media to express his grief. The Hogueras artist Pedro Espadero published a heartfelt tribute to the pyrotechnician on the day of his passing. "Today is one of those days I never wanted to live," begins the builder, who shared a great friendship with Pedro Luis. Espadero describes step by step an agonising morning in which, after learning of the explosion, he tried to contact his friend, reach the pyrotechnics workshop, and finally confirmed "the worst." "Genius and figure. One of the best people the Fiesta allowed me to know," writes the artist emotionally.

Indeed, Pedro Luis and Espadero shared countless battles. The bonfire builder recalls how the pyrotechnician was among the first to help him, even financially, when his workshop burned down. "We have lived many adventures and misadventures," he acknowledges, "we would end the marches at dawn at his parents' house where he would offer us a broth for the hangover," he recalls. The mascletàs, the bonfires, the fallas, the trips, or the cremàs of the official bonfires are some of the unforgettable memories. "Don't cause trouble in heaven. Wait for me there," the builder recounts.

Many have shared memories of the bonfires with Pedro Luis Sirvent. In fact, the pyrotechnician was the first child president of the Sèneca-Autobusos bonfire and a pioneer of the commission formed by children, which indeed operated entirely independently. Initially, they planted in the old station pavilions, and when the location change alongside the adult monument was formalised, a change that, according to the president of Sèneca-Autobusos, Josep Amand Tomàs, Sirvent never quite liked and always "left him with a thorn."

The memories of Amand's early years in the festival are inevitably linked to Pedro Luis Sirvent and his brother César, who were already part of the commission 50 years ago. The foguerer also recalls the spectacular nature of the pyrotechnician's mascletàs: "One year we decided to shoot a mascletà in the parking lot on Italia Street, right next to the bus station, and it was so massive that it shattered all the windows," Amand reminisces, also lamenting the loss of Sirvent.