Portugal Safety and Security Report Wednesday 28^th August 2024

 

Good afternoon. The 5.3 Magnitude earthquake on Monday morning 60 kms west of Sines is a reminder that Portugal is at risk of earthquakes. This was the largest in terms of Magnitude since the magnitude earthquake in 1969. On that occasion, the epicentre was 200 kilometres from Sagres and had a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter Scale. At least 13 people died.

The earthquake on Monday, despite being very shallow at 17 kms, there were no reported injuries or damage, although it was felt by many people. If the epicentre had been closer to the shore or on the mainland itself it could have been a different matter. A total of 5662 reports of people feeling the earthquake were made to Volcano Discover and over 10,000 to the IPMA. We thank the over 350 people who commented on our FB posts on how the earthquake effected them.

Thank you to our team member Fernanda Goncalves for posting on our Facebook page the information just 17 minutes following the earthquake occurring! Some 30 minutes later it was announced on social media by ANEPC and nearly 3 hours later by IPMA. However IPMA had earlier placed details on their website and Lusa News agency published this at O546 hrs

The earthquake illustrates the importance of knowing what action to take during and after an earthquake something we at Safe Communities Portugal do at regular intervals, including of course the “A Terra Treme” annual earthquake exercise held in November. A reminder of action to take can be found here. It also highlight the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of properties in Portugal that do not have earthquake resilience, especially those built before 1958.

In monitoring the Madeira fires over the last 12 days we have read perhaps hundreds of interviews regarding the progress of combatting the fire, coming from journalist, officials and political leaders including parish, municipal and regional leaders. Often we have identified contradictions, and sometimes press releases made at similar times, with different content.

However, standing out amongst these, in a most positive way, was the mayor of Santana Dinarte Fernandes who on Saturday argued that “conclusions must be drawn from the fight against the fire on the island of Madeira, warning that without national and European resources it would have been difficult to control the situation”.

He added “that without the resources made available by the Republic, namely the special firefighting team, and then the activation of the European resource with aircraft, it would be very difficult to have the situation in the Autonomous Region of Madeira under control”.

Dinarte Fernandes argued that “political and technical leaders”, whether in the forestry sector or in Civil Protection, “must draw conclusions so that situations like these can be addressed and dealt with more quickly”.

“We cannot allow the repercussions of a fire that starts on the other side of the island to be like this. We have all understood this. We spent 20 years saying that helicopters would not work, but in the end they do and they work. We spent another 20 years saying that Canadairs and fixed wing aircraft would not work, but in the end they do,” he said.

The Mayor stressed that there will always be “a risk of fire” in the forest, but argued that it is necessary to “think about the type of forest we want” for the future.

“We need to be more realistic on these issues and try out the solutions that the world offers us to fight fires and not be so parochial to the point of thinking that we have all the solutions here,” he added.

Madeira’s Regional Emergency and Civil Protection Plan ceases to be in force this Tuesday.

Our team at Safe Communities wishes you a safe week ahead

News and Features

How did Portugal manage to reduce the number of fires in just six years?

Tiago Oliveira, president of AGIF, highlights the importance of local awareness-raising work and advocates the creation of an interoperability mechanism in fire-fighting at European level.

More than 100 people have died and 500,000 hectares of land have been burned. This scenario has not been repeated in Portugal since 2017, the year in which the deadliest and most devastating fires were recorded in the country.

Since then, the number of forest fires has been reduced by more than half , mainly thanks to a campaign to prevent risky behaviour, promoted by the Agency for Integrated Management of Rural Fires (AGIF), within the scope of the Integrated Management System of Rural Fires (SGIFR).

“We started working after 2017. Portuguese society was very traumatized by the issue of fires and in the first year of the campaign in 2018, we focused on a clearer message: ‘Portugal is calling for you’, because it was necessary to call on all Portuguese people to reduce the number of fires”, says Tiago Oliveira, president of the board of directors of AGIF, in statements to Euronews.

According to Tiago Oliveira, an average of 20,000 fires broke out in Portugal per year before 2019 and last year there were 7,000.

“This was achieved through a communications campaign on television, in newspapers and on the radio, and through measures to improve the effectiveness of the campaign, providing alternatives to people who needed to use fire to eliminate agricultural waste, providing a number that allowed people to call and ask for help to burn or ask whether they could burn or not”, explains the technician, highlighting that there was a change in the behaviour of the Portuguese in terms of the negligent use of fire.

“This year, the strategy will involve and is involving personalized door-to-door contacts, through the National Republican Guard, for example. It is involving greater involvement, now with the Ministry of Education, with campaigns in schools, between the ages of five and 12, with the ‘ Raposa Chama ‘ project that will mobilize around half a million students over the next five years”, explains Tiago Oliveira.

According to data released on Monday by the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), the year 2024 will have, up until August 15, the lowest number of fires and the lowest area burned since 2014. In total, there have already been 3,485 rural fires this year.

Even so, August is already the month with the largest area burned in 2024 and doubled the figures for July. From 1 to 15 August, 3,484 hectares burned, while in the previous month the fires had consumed an area of ​​1,582 hectares. The area burned in these first two weeks corresponds to 44% of the total area burned this year in mainland Portugal (7,949 hectares).

Comparing the figures for 2024 with the previous 10 years, there were 58% fewer rural fires and 87% fewer burnt areas compared to the annual average for the same period.

“This year, 2024, we have 3,500 fires, which is a relatively relevant record, because people have also consolidated this knowledge in rural areas. There was also a mild summer, we didn’t have as much drought and, therefore, all the sparks don’t start fires”, explains the president of AGIF.

According to the “State of Wildfires” report published in the journal Earth System Science Data, from March 2023 to February 2024, the fires were contained in size in Europe, devastating only 8,400 square kilometres, but resulted in the interruption of water supplies, damage to infrastructure or agricultural land, with impacts on tourism and local economies.

According to data from the World Bank, forest fires caused losses of 77 billion euros in Europe in 2023.

Tiago Oliveira argues that Europe needs an “interoperability mechanism so that forces from neighbouring countries can operate in the same way”.

“It is not enough to send air assets from one country to another. When the air assets arrive, they must be coordinated with the forces on the ground and they must work with common mechanisms. Canada and the United States do this very well and Europe can take inspiration from this model,” he argues.

Furthermore, the AGIF president believes that policy coordination is necessary. “In particular, using the Common Agricultural Policy , which allows farmers to better manage their forests, and bringing more attention from the Common Agricultural Policy to abandoned land, to agricultural practices that do not generate fire and allow vegetation to always be treated,” he adds.

To date, the fire in Evros , northeastern Greece, in August last year is the largest ever recorded in the European Union. It burned 938 square kilometres in one go, setting a new record for the old continent.