Flames continue to ravage the north and centre of the country. While Portugal has been hit for several days by a wave of fires fanned by heat and wind, causing at least seven deaths, the situation is still critical this Wednesday. According to Civil Protection, 42 active fires were still recorded, mobilising some 3,900 firefighters supported by more than a thousand vehicles.
According to local media, authorities had to carry out new evacuations on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in the municipality of Gondomar, in the Porto region (north), while firefighters described an “uncontrollable” situation in Arouca, in the Aveiro district, the most affected by the disasters.
Thousands of hectares consumed
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.
Multiple victims
Three firefighters died on Tuesday, trapped by the flames near Tabua, in the region of Coimbra (centre), bringing the toll to seven dead and around fifty injured.
The other victims were a 28-year-old Brazilian employed by a forestry company who died of burns on Monday while trying to retrieve tools, two people who died of heart attacks and a volunteer firefighter who died Sunday of a sudden illness on the sidelines of an operation.
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