Portugal Safety and Security Report Wednesday 25^th September 2024

Good morning everyone. It will take some time for communities to recover from the severe fires that resulted in the deaths of nine persons, with around 170 injuries, the destruction of property (the number yet to be confirmed) and the burning of over 130,000 hectares of land.

The fires started at a time when the fire hazard was particularly high. The Fire weather index was “exceptional”, meaning that fires can be difficult to suppress by normal means of firefighting. Once the fire gets hold and the intensity increases, driven in this case by warm easterly and southerly winds, the fire spreads and the perimeter of the fire can extend to many kilometres. For example the fire complex” in Oliveira de Azeméis, Albergaria-A-Velha, Sever do Vouga and Águeda has covered a perimeter of 300 kilometres.

As I learned from my visit to Milan, intense fires can also generate difficult atmospheric conditions with changing wind patterns. This makes firefighting extremely difficult in terms of the safety of firefighters, and with considerable smoke being generated, means that firefighting aircraft cannot operate. This was the case in these fires on occasions.

On one day there were over 400 fires registered which the ANEPC believe to be the highest since 2017.It is tragedy that some of these started deliberately with suspects having already been attested.

In the October 2017 fires, strong winds associated with the close passage of hurricane Ophelia contributed to the intensity of the fires, but it also helped in suppressing them, due to the arrival of rain and higher relative humidity a few days later. The current fires were only extinguished upon the arrival of rain. In countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia fires can burn for weeks simple because heatwaves remain. This is a consequence of the increase in global temperatures currently standing a record levels. If it continues we will experience more and higher heatwaves in Portugal and there the greater risk of not only fires, but fires burning with greater intensity, over larger areas and for longer periods.

A few days ago a fire expert Sande Silva recalled that after 2017, “there were major problems due to the expansion of eucalyptus into areas where it had never existed, in circumstances very similar” to the current one, after fires in a “very late period, in October”.

“We can also consider that it is very late because we are about to start autumn and, at this moment, it is starting to rain, and so these are the ideal conditions for the eucalyptus seeds that were released during the fire, or after the fire, to germinate soon after”, he warned. In terms of consequences for the soil, after large and severe fires, especially in mountainous or sloping areas, after the destruction of vegetation and debris called “leaf litter or dead cover, the soil is left unprotected”.

Now, in these soils without plant cover as protection and “with a higher percentage of sand”, more easily mobilized by water, “land subsidence, and stones can come loose and, in general”, an “increase in flood peaks” may occur, as in the past. “If there is a downpour, if the basin is covered, the water will be distributed over time, if the basin is not covered with vegetation, all the water will concentrate and run off at the same time, and will give rise to large flows” that can cause flooding, he stressed.

With the start of the Hydrological Year 2024/2025 to October 1, the likelihood of intense and often localized rainfall phenomena associated with atmospheric instability increases.

Recognising this Civil Protection has issued preventive advice to the population and the IPMA have issued orange level heavy rain warnings, which include areas where the fires were most extreme. It is therefore important that people are vigilant to the above and take care particularly when driving or near slopes that have been durned in the fires.

Our team wishes you a safe week ahead

News

Government highlights link between fires and climate change

Maria da Graça Carvalho stresses that climate change is “a reality for everyone”. “The consequences are already very visible. In Portugal we had the terrible fires”, she added.

The Minister of Environment and Energy referred to the link between climate change and the fires that hit Portugal last week, although highlighting the impact of “human factors”.

“There is always a part that is related to climate change. It is not only that, but it is clear that the unusual conditions that occurred during those three days, both the heat, the wind and the very low humidity, have a lot to do with everything that is climate change”, Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho told journalists in New York, on the sidelines of the Future Summit.

“But that’s not all. There is a whole organization of the forest, processes of cleaning the forest, many other human factors that are also at the origin of these phenomena,” he added.

Nine people died and more than 170 were injured as a result of the fires that hit last week, mainly in the North and Centre regions of Portugal.

Between September 15 and 20, forest fires consumed around 135,000 hectares, bringing the total area burned in Portugal this year to almost 147,000 hectares, the third largest of the decade, according to the European Copernicus system.

Burnt area in Arouca corresponds to 20% of the municipality

Regarding the economic impact of this destruction, the Mayor of Arouca says that the assessment of the losses began while the fire was still ongoing, in areas where there was no longer any fire, but will only be completed in a few days.

Last week’s fire in Arouca burned 20% of the territory of this municipality in the district of Aveiro, the local authority revealed on Monday, with the forest area destroyed at around 6,000 hectares.

“The burnt area has not yet been fully determined, but it is estimated to be around 6,000 hectares, which corresponds to 20% of the municipality”, the president of the Municipal Council of Arouca, Margarida Belém, told Lusa.

Considering that the municipality, which is also part of the Porto Metropolitan Area and is classified as a UNESCO Geopark, occupies a global area of ​​around 329 square kilometres, of which 85% is strictly forest, the portion of destroyed soils corresponds to 17% of the territory’s green area.

Regarding the economic impact of this destruction, Margarida Belém says that the assessment of the losses began while the fire was still ongoing, in areas where there was no longer any fire, but will only be completed in a few days.

“The burnt area is extensive and a lot of machinery and agricultural tools were destroyed,” explains the mayor. “Even so, we hope that the damage can be assessed by the end of this week,” she says.

Until then, the City Council’s priorities are twofold: “On the one hand, ensuring that those affected by the fire are compensated for the resulting damages as quickly as possible and, on the other, considering the weather forecasts for the coming days, ensuring the implementation of actions that safeguard the safety of the population in the burned areas”.

The screams, the fear, the distress: the longest night of the year

By Rui Caria – SIC

The country was promised that never again, that after Pedrogão, the tragedy of the fires would not happen again on such a scale. But last week, part of the country was shocked again. People died, homes and lives were destroyed, entire regions are now an open wound.

The night was the longest of the year in the village of Melres, in the municipality of Gondomar. In the early hours of the 18th of September, a fire that had reached the area a few hours earlier, in the late afternoon of the 17th, was no longer just burning in the forest, but also in the homes of some of the village’s inhabitants, where they spent the night awake.

Whether it was guarding their belongings, helping the firefighters or simply watching helplessly as the flames advanced, few people rested before dawn.

For the others, those who have lost everything, rest will not come soon.

The scene was repeated in the parish of Talhadas, in Sever do Vouga. A little over 80 kilometres away, the night was the same as in Melres. The same orange tone of the sky, the same unbreathable air, the same sparks that flew like firebirds , projecting chaos into the forests that would soon be consumed.

The same cries of distress and confusion could be heard. In forest fires, geography seems to be the only variable. And fear is the great unifier.