Julia Simon

The conference took place in these big plastic tents.

And the day before the conference was supposed to end, I was on the phone with my editor in the U.S., Sadie Babbitts.

And then people started running through the tent saying, there's a fire.

Okay, there's really a fire.

Jesus effing Christ, Sadie.

Oh, no.

I know.

I got to move on.

Sadie's telling me to get out of here.

The Brazilians are being set and they speak my language.

Well, what happened?

It seems to have been an electrical issue.

Something caught fire.

There was a huge blaze enveloping part of the tent.

At least a dozen people were treated for smoke inhalation.

Tens of thousands of us were evacuated.

But when I ran out of the tent, the first thing I did was find this guy named Andres Gomez.

Because Emily, today's podcast, it's not about the fire.

It's about what was supposed to happen just 15 minutes after the fire broke out.

Andres is from Colombia, and he was working with the Colombian government and a group of about 20 other countries to make this big announcement.