Three firefighters died Tuesday while battling a forest fire in northern Portugal, which has been hit by fires since the end of last week that have destroyed more area than burned during the rest of the summer, bringing the death toll to seven.
The three firefighters, two women and a man, were trapped by fire near Tapua in the Coimbra region (central), the Interior Ministry said.
Other victims of the disaster include a 28-year-old Brazilian working for a forestry company who burned to death on Monday while trying to recover tools, two people who suffered heart attacks, and a volunteer firefighter who died of a sudden illness on the sidelines of the “operation.”
By Tuesday afternoon, more than 50 active fires, fanned by strong winds, had mobilized about 4,500 firefighters across the country, as the disasters killed seven people and injured about 50 others.
“Today was very difficult (…) and the night will also be difficult” due to forecasts of particularly strong winds, civil protection services spokesman André Fernandez said Tuesday evening during a press conference.
He explained that 62 people were scheduled to be transferred on Tuesday, adding that he did not yet have complete data on the number of injured and damaged homes.
The most worrying front is in the Aveiro region (north), where fires are threatening villages.
– “Maximum” risks –
In the early afternoon, in Arancada, near Agueda, the sky suddenly darkened. A column of black smoke rose into the gardens of a house.
On the street, anxious residents ran out of their homes, rushing to help fight a renewed fire in a small agricultural warehouse.
“It's terrible! Nobody sleeps here. We've been awake since 2 a.m.,” said Maria Ludivina Castanheira, 63, who stepped in to help her neighbors.
“We opened the cages so the pigeons could escape” and “we moved the chickens that were in the chicken coop to a neighbor’s house,” testified Antonia Estima, a 39-year-old worker who took leave to help fight the fires.
Authorities estimated on Monday evening that the area destroyed was about 10,000 hectares of forest and brush in remote areas of Aveiro, according to preliminary data.
The “state of alert” in effect since Saturday afternoon due to the danger of fires, which is considered “maximum” in a large part of the northern half of the country, was extended until Thursday evening.
The Lisbon authorities have activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism to obtain eight additional sea bombers. Spain, France, Italy and Greece have responded to the call.
After indicating that measures would be taken quickly to help the municipalities affected by this disaster, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro also announced the creation of a “specialized team” to investigate the criminal origin of the forest fires resulting from the extraordinary Council of Ministers.
– 2017 Anniversary –
According to experts interviewed by the weekly Expresso, Monday saw the worst weather conditions in terms of fire risk since 2001 in the northern half of the country.
This led to the outbreak of about 160 fires, dozens of which later took on large dimensions, making firefighting extremely difficult.
Experts say increasingly severe heat waves and droughts are consequences of climate change and are leading to wildfires.
Portugal has so far had a relatively quiet summer on the fire front, with 10,300 hectares burned by the end of August, a third of 2023 and seven times less than the average of the past ten years.
But the past few days have brought back memories of deadly fires that broke out in June and October 2017, which left more than 100 people dead in total.
Since then, the country has increased its investment in prevention tenfold and doubled its budget for fighting forest fires.
Published on September 17 at 10:19 pm, Agence France-Presse
