According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), the total area affected by the fires in recent days could exceed 100,000 hectares, ten times more than the area burned since the beginning of the summer. These fires have “by far” broken the carbon emissions record for a month of September in Portugal, the European Copernicus Observatory announced on Thursday, which predicts that the plumes of smoke will reach Spain and France on Saturday and Sunday. The toll in recent days stands at five deaths, including four firefighters, and 90 injured, including 12 seriously, prompting the government to declare a day of national mourning on Friday.
“Abandoned” eucalyptus forests
Dozens of homes have also been destroyed or damaged. The tragedies of the last few days in Portugal have revived memories of the deadly fires of 2017, which left 119 dead. Since then, the Iberian country has increased investment in prevention tenfold and doubled its budget for fighting forest fires, managing to reduce the area burned by two thirds on average each year.
Until last week, this trend seemed to be confirmed. But, in terms of forest management, with large areas of land abandoned and covered with eucalyptus, a species that promotes the spread of fire, today “the situation is worse than in 2017”, said forest engineer Paulo Pimenta de Castro.
According to the expert, Portugal has some 900,000 hectares of eucalyptus forests, which are used to produce paper pulp, but two-thirds of which are “either abandoned or poorly maintained.” However, he adds, this week’s fires have affected “mainly areas mainly populated by eucalyptus.”
In its last annual report, the government body responsible after 2017 for coordinating efforts to prevent and combat fires had already warned against a weakening of “political determination” in favour of the reforms deemed necessary.
“Criminal” causes
“We cannot yet say that the country is safe from serious rural fires,” warned the Agency for Integrated Forest Fire Management (AGIF). Prime Minister Luis Montenegro emphasized the “criminal” causes of the fires, announcing the creation of “specialized” investigative teams, while the gendarmerie indicated that it had arrested seven suspected arsonists between Saturday and Tuesday.
Some mayors of the most affected municipalities have denounced a lack of resources to deal with the scale of the blazes, while the president of the Firefighters’ League, Antonio Nunes, has blamed the civil protection command. “On Sunday, when the state of alert was declared, it would have been necessary to further reinforce the regions where we knew that the slightest fire could be catastrophic,” he said.
