On Sunday, about 1,500 firefighters were trying to put out three bush and tree fires that had raged for several days in central and northern Portugal, and the government placed them on a “state of emergency”. Because of the scorching temperatures.
Donzelia Marques, a resident, said, pointing to the hills between her small village of Travesa de El Magdal and the town of Frexianda in the municipality of Ourem (centre).
Having been evacuated from her home the night before, this 76-year-old retired was able to return to it on Sunday morning, relieved to discover that no house there had burned down.
Thursday’s blaze, which mobilized more than 700 firefighters on Sunday after destroying at least 1,500 hectares of vegetation, destroyed at least two homes, according to Civil Protection.
At least thirty wounded
The fires of the past few days have injured at least a dozen firefighters and nearly two dozen residents, but most victims were immediately treated for symptoms of intoxication or exhaustion.
Another fire has raged the crowd of 450 firefighters since Friday near there, in the municipality of Pombal, also located at the junction of the provinces of Leiria and Santarém.
The fire that broke out on Thursday in Carrazeda de Ansiães, in the Bragança (Northeast) region, was the other “high risk” hotspot this weekend, in the words of Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who canceled a trip to Mozambique to monitor the situation as closely as possible. .
The Portuguese government decided to raise the level of alert by declaring a “state of emergency” from Monday to Friday next week, and called on the European Union to activate its joint mechanism for civil protection, to get two seaplanes stationed in Spain.
‘Almost unprecedented condition’
“We are facing an almost unprecedented situation in terms of meteorology,” National Civil Protection Commander Andre Fernandez commented, as more than 120 fires were recorded daily on Friday and Saturday.
Referring to temperatures that could reach 45 degrees Celsius, Interior Minister Jose Luis Carneiro said Portugal was facing the “worst combination of factors” since the June-October 2017 fires, which killed more than a hundred people.
The fires that multiply all over the world are linked to various phenomena that scientists expect due to global warming. Thus, the increase in temperature, the multiplication of heat waves and the decrease in precipitation in places is an ideal combination for the development of fires.
current heat wave It affects a country in which 28.4% of its territory was in a state of “extreme drought” at the end of June, compared to 1.4% in the previous month.
