Algarve Situation Report Thursday 26th May 2022
Municipality of Loulé has a modern advanced Civil Protection unit
The Municipality of Loulé inaugurated the Advanced Civil Protection Unit, in Vale Maria Dias, in the heart of Serra do Caldeirão, assuming an important role in preventing, first intervention and fighting forest fires.
As mentioned by the municipality in a statement released, it is at kilometre 704 of the National Road N2 that the building is located, which, due to its strategic location in one of the main forest areas in the Algarve, more sensitive to fires, serves an extensive area. It was thinking about the protection of dispersed population agglomerations, the wealth in terms of flora and fauna and the natural and geological heritage that this space was created, “an enormous asset for the work of Civil Protection”, as stressed by Mayor Vítor Aleixo.
This involved an investment of half a million euros, with the acquisition of the property and renovation and expansion works.
The space includes two buildings with different support facilities. One of them is made up of technical offices, equipped with means and resources for daily activity, but which can also be converted into two separate cells (Emergency Situation and Management and Command and Control Coordination). This is in case there is a need to materialize a joint command post for the various civil protection agents, for example if there is a serious accident or a catastrophe, as João Matos Lima, coordinator of the Loulé Municipal Civil Protection Service, explained. It also includes rest areas for the operatives and a multipurpose area for training and awareness actions.
The unit will be equipped with fibre optics, internet, landline telephone, network of meteorological stations, Municipal Radio Network and SIRESP Radio Network. The second building will allow the creation of a temporary structure – ZCAP – Zone of Concentration and Support to the Population – as it was designed to provide support to the population or operational reinforcement. It also includes a workshop for vehicle maintenance and repair.
New tourist pass for the “Vamus Algarve” service designed for residents and tourists
Traveling within the main national holiday destination is now even easier: the tourist transport pass that allows access to all the “Vamus Algarve” bus lines is now on sale at the 20 tourist offices in the Algarve Tourism Region (RTA).
In a statement, RTA informs that without a limit number of trips, the tourist pass is valid for a period of three days or seven days from the first validation on the regular lines “Vamus Algarve”, including the Aerobus service, which connects the airport from Faro to the city center and to Albufeira, Lagoa, Portimão and Lagos, and the new EVA Cliffs Line, “which transports the traveler through some of the main tourist attractions of the destination”.
The three-day tourist pass costs 35 euros and the seven-day pass can be purchased for 45 euros at the network of tourist information offices spread throughout the region, visited annually by more than half a million tourists, day trippers and residents of the Algarve.
“We connect the Algarve from one end to the other” is the signature of the “Vamos Algarve” service, designed for residents and tourists who seek the bus as a means of transport.
GNR – Guarda Nacional Republicana, arrest a 46-year-old man for thefts and robberies, in Vilamoura.
On the 23rd May the GNR informs that, following three thefts in establishments and two robberies, which took place in Vilamoura between November 2021 and February this year, the military launched police investigations that allowed the suspect to be identified and located.
During the investigation, an arrest warrant and a house search warrant were carried out at the suspect’s residence which, according to the GNR, “allowed the seizing of various clothing and footwear used by the man in the practice of illicit acts, namely in a robbery carried out while the victim was withdrawing money from an ATM”.
The detainee was made a defendant, and the facts sent to the Judicial Court of Faro, for the application of coercive measures.