Alicante already had a tradition of midsummer bonfires when José María Py and the Alicante Atracción association proposed a new organised celebration in 1928. Drawing inspiration from Valencia’s Fallas, the first official Hogueras combined crafted monuments with the local fire tradition. Alicante’s municipal archive records that founding year, and the festival museum explains how a summer custom became a civic celebration with its own artistic identity.

Neighbourhood commissions now spend the year preparing satirical sculptures, music and community celebrations. The monuments are installed to be admired and judged before the cremà on 24 June brings their brief public life to an end. Some figures escape the flames and enter the museum’s record of changing tastes and craftsmanship. Visitors therefore see both an ephemeral art exhibition and a shared ritual: the burning is the conclusion of months of local work.