Seven people have died as a result of the out-of-control fires that have been ravaging Portugal for several days. More than 40 fires are still active on Wednesday, September 18, generating smoke visible from satellites flying over the region.
Impressive images. Around forty forest fires continue to ravage the north and centre of Portugal on Wednesday 18 September, which has been hit for several days by a wave of fires fanned by heat and wind, causing at least seven deaths.
The civil protection service listed 42 active fires on its website, mobilizing some 3,900 firefighters supported by more than a thousand vehicles.
As a result, the smoke from these fires is visible on satellite images. The European Copernicus service speaks of a cloud of smoke covering about 100,000 km² above the Atlantic Ocean.
“Uncontrollable” situation
According to local media, the authorities had to carry out new evacuations during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in the municipality of Gondomar, in the Porto region (north), while the firefighters described an “uncontrollable” situation in Arouca, in the district of Aveiro, the most affected by the disasters.
In this region alone, some 20,000 hectares of vegetation have burned since Monday, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), which listed around fifteen other fires having exceeded the threshold of 1,000 hectares consumed this week in the rest of the country.
In the Aveiro region, several fronts of a group of four fires that formed a perimeter of around a hundred kilometres were on the verge of being brought under control thanks to the efforts of firefighters, the authorities informed on Tuesday evening.
