No, the Cremà is the concluding event of the whole Fallas festival. After that, the only thing left to do is to start planning next year’s Fallas.

The Cremà is what the whole Fallas festival is geared towards. It is the concluding and most spectacular event, in which the falla sculptures are burnt in massive bonfires around the city.

During the Cremà all the falla sculptures are burnt. These allegorical sculptures are made of papier-mâché and wood, so that they can easily catch fire.

The burning of the fallas is the whole point of the Fallas festival. This bonfire event has ancient origins, but its meaning has remained more or less unchanged: it signifies renewal, the end of one year and the beginning of a new one.

Yes, all fallas are burnt in La Cremà. However, two ninots (figures that are part of a bigger falla) are pardoned by popular vote every year.

The ninots are the individual figures (or puppets) that make up a falla. A falla usually represents a big, dynamic scene. The bigger fallas can be made up of dozens of ninots.

A ninot indultat is a ninot that has been pardoned from the fire.

Every year, a ninot is taken from each falla and shown at an exhibition. The public then votes on which ninots they think should be saved*.* The two winning ninots (one of the adult fallas and one for the children’s fallas) become ninots indultats.

When the municipal falla (the biggest and last one) is burnt in Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the regional and national anthems are played via the loudspeakers and sung by everyone in the square.

The Cremà timetable can vary in terms of time (it will usually begin between 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm). The order of the events, on the other hand, remains the same every year.

• First, the children’s fallas are burnt.
• The last of the children’s fallas to be burnt is the first prize winner for that category.
• Then, the adult fallas are burnt.
• Then, the first prize winner for the adult fallas is burnt.
• Lastly, the falla in Plaza del Ayuntamiento is burnt.

If you’d like to know more about the schedule, you can check the relevant section of this article.

Although the name La Cremà might lead you to think it is one single event, many Cremàs take place in different parts of the city, for several hours. Everywhere there’s a falla sculpture there will be a Cremà at some point.

The last Cremà always takes place in Plaza del Ayuntamiento.

If you’d like to know more about the specific locations and the map, you can have a look at the relevant section of this article.

Yes, because there is a map of all the falla sculptures in the city.

If you’d like to know more about this map, you can have a look at the relevant section of this article.

In general, no. There are many measures in place to make the event as safe as possible, and the burning cannot start until firefighters have cleared the site and are ready to intervene.

That said, you should always be careful and never go past the fences.

If you want to know more about safety during the event, check out our article on it.

Absolutely yes. Firefighters have to be present to oversee the burning and secure/prepare the site before the Cremà of a sculpture even begins.

This is actually one of the reasons why the different Cremàs don’t all take place at the same time: to allow firefighters to move from one location to the other.

The biggest and most famous falla is always located in Plaza del Ayuntamiento. It is known as falla municipal and it is always the last one to burn.

There is a vast Fallas vocabulary, but you can understand what is going on by learning a few keywords.

You can learn all the vocabulary you need to get by in our article about it.

There are two theories about the Cremà’s origins.

The first one is that the festivity is a descendant of pre-Christian spring bonfires.

According to the second one, carpenters in the city used to celebrate the end of winter and their patron saint (Saint Joseph) by burning unused wood outside their workshops. Supposedly, this later evolved into the event we know today.

To know more about these two theories, you can check the relevant section of our article.

Firefighters prepare every location for the burning of a falla. Just before the fire is lit, they make sure to cut the electricity and dampen the nearby walls, trees, and plants. If needed, during the fire they continue to keep the nearby plants and windows wet.

You can read more about this in the relevant section of this article.

Not much. It is good to have an idea of when the events should be taking place, but will likely not be respected.

If, for example, the timetable says that the adult fallas will start burning at 8:00 pm, you might not see one burn until 9:45 pm.

This is because safety concerns (like having enough firefighters and securing the location) are regarded above everything else.

Yes, the falla sculptures are built and lit on fire so that they can burn in a very specific way.

In a well-built falla, the highest part of the statue should burn first and fall straight down to the ground, never sideways. And Valencians know this too, so they always pay attention to the way the sculptures burn.

To know more about this, you can check the relevant section of this article.