The Judiciary Police (PJ) announced on Friday 14th September that it had arrested a 29-year-old man on suspicion of a forest fire in Almodôvar, in the Beja district.
In a statement, the PJ reports that on the 1st of this month, between 3:00 pm and 4:00 p.m., in Santa Cruz, Almodôvar municipality, the man, “armed with a lighter, set fire to ground in places 20 meters apart causing a fire of great proportions, that consumed between 20 and 25 hectares of cork trees and olive trees “.
The arrest of the man, a bricklayer, occurred following an investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) of the neighbouring municipality of Loulé, already in the district of Faro.
Source of the PJ’s Southern Board told Lusa that the man was detained on Thursday and will be present at the Court of Loulé for first judicial interrogation and application of pre-trial conditions.