Ministry orders “urgent inquiry” into condition of vehicles
Minister of Internal Affairs Margarida Blasco has ordered the suspension until further notice of use of firefighter vehicles acquired in the same batch as the vehicle involved in the accident in Odemira on New Year’s Day, which caused the death of firefighter Dinis Conceição.
According to the Portuguese Firefighters League (LBP) 81 vehicles are involved, namely tankers and forestry vehicles, acquired under the Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PRR) and delivered by the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC).
LBP president António Nunes also announced that the league has created a technical committee made up of five members to assess the safety of all vehicles assigned to fire departments, whether ambulances or fire-fighting vehicles.
He said the commission will investigate some of the largest accidents of the last three years that caused bodily harm to firefighters, stressing that many of the disasters have happened at reduced speeds.
Conceição and his colleagues were injured, in varying degrees of gravity, when the firefighting vehicle they were travelling in went into a skid in Odemira, on the night of January 1st.
The men were all part of one of Odemira fire station’s permanent intervention teams (EIP). They were returning to barracks after being called to intervene “in an authorised fire that got out of control” in Saboia, in the interior of the municipality.
Conceição died of his injuries in hospital.
The Emergency Services and Civil Protection Inspectorate has already opened an investigation into the accident, while the Ministry of Interior Administration is now conducting its own urgent inquiry into the safety conditions of the vehicles in the PRR batch.
Source material: LUSA
