Carnival of Fire

Tumaco's Carnaval del Fuego traces to a 1959 fundraising bazaar organised after a fire destroyed the town's fire station, and now runs five days before Lent with parades, neighbourhood competitions and the signature Noche Afro celebration of Pacific Afro-Colombian culture. Masked, whip-carrying cucuruchos, drawn from ancestral belief traditions, appear throughout as recurring carnival characters guiding children's behaviour.

Accounts differ slightly on the exact starting point of Tumaco's Carnaval del Fuego, but the most commonly told version dates it to 1959, when a major fire destroyed the town's fire station and residents organised a bazaar - complete with neighbourhood-selected queens - to raise money to help firefighters rebuild; the first Fire Queen chosen that year was Ligia Rosasco Llorente, and the name Carnaval del Fuego stuck to the community fundraising tradition it began.