According to a statement issued by the PJ (judicial police), the man is suspected of starting at least four fires, but there may well have been more.
The four he is cited for took place in a “vast forested area” with maritime pines, oak and eucalyptus trees. Several residential and commercial complexes could have been affected, were it not for the “swift and effective intervention of local firefighters” (of which he would have been one).
Media sources developing this story suggest the firefighter’s motives will have been the payment he received for taking part in firefighting combat.
As the PJ statement continues: “The investigation suspects that the same firefighter started other forest wildfires in the same municipality in the district of Santarém, taking into account the spatial temporal pattern and ‘modus operandi’”.
The man has no criminal record, and is due to hear possible bail terms from a judge.
The fires he is alleged to have started took place on June 26, July 1, 17 and 19. The PJ statement stresses that they managed to burn a “considerable area”.
As for the timing devices, it is believed the suspect made them himself “bearing in mind objects seized during searches” of his home, and his locker at the fire station.
According to Ourém fire station, the suspect has been a firefighter for the last six years, and always ‘complied with his obligations’.
PJ police have arrested at least two other men this week, for fires that started in Maia, and Cinfães, while a female firefighter suspected of starting two fires last summer has been placed in jail as she was found to be flouting the terms of her house arrest.
Source material: PJ/ Correio da Manhã
