Eight days after the night several vehicles burned next to the Sagrada Família, a burnt-out light van remains parked on the corner of Sardenya street and Còrsega street, in the Camp d'en Grassot neighborhood. The remnants of the fire are still visible in various parts of the area.
The fires damaged fifteen vehicles, a garbage container, and the commercial ground floors of a building. The extent of the fires contrasts with the lack of information on the progress of the investigation, which remains open under the hypothesis of the action of an arsonist in the immediate vicinity of the temple.
The Eixample Investigation Unit took over an investigation that remains open
The flames broke out at dawn in very close locations to each other and next to the Sagrada Família, when there were no pedestrians on the street. The Guàrdia Urbana initially cordoned off the area after extinguishing the fire.
Later, the investigation was handed over to the investigation unit of the Eixample district. So far, the degree of progress of an investigation that maintains the intentional action of an arsonist as the main hypothesis has not been disclosed.
In the affected perimeter, there are still visible signs of the episode from eight days ago. The burnt van at the intersection of Sardenya and Còrsega has become the most evident image of damage that also affected fifteen vehicles, a container, and the ground floors of a building.
Two recent arrests place other cases in Horta-Guinardó, Besòs, and Maresme
The case comes after other recent episodes in Barcelona and its surroundings. At the end of last year, the police arrested a 63-year-old man in Horta-Guinardó for the repeated burning of garbage containers.
That action occurred in a context of neighborhood concern about the possibility that the flames would end up reaching cars and buildings. Weeks before that arrest, officers had already arrested another alleged arsonist for setting cars on fire in the Besòs and Maresme area.
Now, the focus is once again on the Eixample and the surroundings of the Sagrada Família, where the fires were concentrated in a very small area during the early morning. The spatial and temporal coincidence of the fires supports the hypothesis with which the investigation is working.
The most concrete precedent for this chain of cases is the arrest, at the end of last year, of a 63-year-old man in Horta-Guinardó for the repeated burning of containers.