The fire also burns in Portugal. The fires have consumed almost 3% of the Portuguese territory, an area of 274,653 hectares, according to provisional data of the Copernicus system. It is as if in Spain 1.5 million hectares were burned, (403,171 ha) in the catastrophic wave of fires. The affected areas are concentrated in the north and center of the country, where two large fires are kept active, in the municipalities of five vilas (guard district) and Arganil (Coimbra District), the latter far from being controlled. They are the only two focuses of gravity that remain active, according to the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority of Portugal (ANPEC) through a phone call, after having turned off two others on Wednesday. The fires leave three fatalities.
A thousand people have been evacuated since the end of July, when the first significant fires were recorded, the second most intense since 2017, according to Anpec and confirm the ones, when in total 563,560 hectares were burned. The authorities estimate that only the fire of the municipality of Arganil, which has spread through several municipalities in the central region of Coimbra, has devastated more than 40,000 hectares. From Anpec they hope that for Sunday the perimeter of that fire can be established, in which 1,640 firefighters, 544 land vehicles and 15 aerial vehicles work.
Sandra Duarte, 43 -year -old resident of Arganil says that when the flames arrived, on August 13, Porto Silvar, the small town of the municipality where he resides, “was like hell.” “We had the flames at the door,” he says through WhatsApp. The fire, which originated in the neighboring town of Piodao, forced Evacuar Porto Silvar. “But I stayed to help,” says Duarte. “We were surrounded by fire, but firefighters were tireless,” he adds and says that “luckily, the houses were saved.” In any case, he says that “there is only smoke and the sad gray image.” In his town the fire has already been extinguished, “but continues close.”
The flames also remain active in the municipality of five Vilas and their vicinity. Active since Wednesday, it has been extended through the Guarda district, northeast of the country, next to the border with its containment, 143 firefighters work, 32 land vehicles and five aerial vehicles. The authorities ensure that dry thunderstorms are one of the main causes of fires, as confirmed from Civil Protection, and the wind is the biggest problem to turn them off.
In total, the National Emergency and Civil Protection authority figure in 47 rural fires that have affected the country so far this season, which began at the end of July. Of those, 30 have been extinguished, although they remain under observation; seven are controlled and without danger of propagation; Four are being attended by the authorities and two are evolving without area limitation. , which, in any case, has described the day on Thursday as “a little quieter,” the EFE agency has reported.
ODETE Francisco, 54 and lives in Lisbon, says that he was visiting Sobral Gordo, another town in the municipality of Arganil, where he was born. “My parents and my house are here,” he says on WhatsApp. The fire also arrived there on August 13. “The National Guard recommended the evacuation but I did not leave the people. I stayed and did what I could to fight the flames,” he says.
Insistence repeat the same word: hell. “I can only think about that,” he says. “Everything around the town was reduced to ashes,” he adds, thanking the work of the firefighters and volunteers who protected the people building walls that managed to repel the fire. “It saddens me to see the mountains that were so green, and now they are black, but I am proud of our people for the courage with which she responded to this catastrophe,” he says, explaining that “there is no fire, nor in the surroundings.”
Three fatalities
The fires in Portugal have already left three fatal victims, the last 75 -year -old civilian who died on Wednesday, falling from the agricultural machine that led to help contain the flames and be hit by it, as the ANPEC assured the EFE agency. The first victim was another voluntary civilian who died last Friday while contributing to the containment of the fires and the second was a firefighter who died on Sunday in a road accident, Efe reported.
On Wednesday night, the fire that jumped from Galicia, in Spain, to the municipality of Montealegre, in northern Portugal, and that affected an industrial zone in the neighboring municipality of Chaves was taken for controlled. Meanwhile, the Portuguese authorities, who activated the European Civil Protection mechanism for days to receive international aid, have announced that Greece will send two planes to help in the tasks of extinction of the fires, which add to two others that Morocco sent, and hundreds of firefighters that the EU has sent.
This Thursday, the Prime Minister of Portugal, Luís Montenegro, has assured in a message in his account of having spoken with the president of the European Commission, Úrsula von der Leyen, on financing roads “to support communities and companies and guarantee territorial cohesion with greater prevention in the future”.
