A poorly-conceived government announcement over social media has left firefighters seeing red.
It hasn’t helped that the Ministry of Interior Administration sought to repair the damage hours later. The rallying cry now is “Enough of being forgotten!”
A demonstration appears to be being planned for Friday, September 13 outside parliament, and a list of demands.
A statement by the ‘Bombeiros Voluntários Portugueses’, now circulating over social media, says: “We are the largest emergency response force in the country, we risk our lives every day and we still have no recognised career path, no labour rights and are treated as disposable by this government.
“We demand the immediate creation of a National Career Path for Volunteer Firefighters, with fair pay, social protection and decent funding for our Humanitarian Associations.
“On 13 September 2025, at 11am, outside the Assembly of the Republic, we will begin a national vigil of volunteer firefighters.
“This vigil will continue until 15 September 2025, at 4pm — or, if necessary, until the government deigns to receive us and listen to our demands.
“We are not asking for favours. We demand respect, justice and dignity.
“If the Government continues to ignore the Volunteer Firefighters, it will be responsible for the collapse of emergency services in Portugal.
“United, we will not back down. The fight begins on the 13th!”
With parliament convening this afternoon to debate the government’s response to the devastating wildfires that have scarred the north and centre of the country this summer, how can it be that matters have reached this point?
The kick-start appears to have been the image above. The government message: “A fire starts. Do you know who enters into Action?” followed by a list of entities, none of which are Bombeiros Voluntários (Volunteer Firefighters, the men and women who make up the network of firefighters in stations in every town and city in the country). It would have been so simple to add the Bombeiros’ logo:
Socialist MP Ricardo Lima does not even believe its omission was a lapse (as it must have been). He believes it shows “lack of awareness (…) the arrogance of a government that thrives on marketing and thinks it can govern a country from an Excel spreadsheet and an Instagram post.
“More than 90% of fires in Portugal are fought by volunteer firefighters. Men and women who risk their lives, leave their families and show up where no one else wants to be: in the middle of the fire.
“They are the ones who carry the hoses, who work 24 hours without sleep, who go into the bush at night, who breathe smoke, who hear sirens and trees falling on top of them. They are the ones who lose their lives, year after year.
“And what does the government do?
“It makes a poster in which firefighters do not exist”.
This sense of outrage will no doubt spice up this afternoon’s debate, which almost certainly won’t be lacking in combustible material. ND
Source material: Correio da Manhã/ Facebook/ Instagram
