The president of the League of Portuguese Firemen (pictured) has said that coordination of fire fighting “failed miserably” during the first 42 hours when fires blazed through Tavira and São Brás de Alportel last summer.
In a meeting with the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture on Monday (November 6), Jaime Soares (pictured) admitted that between 34 and 48 hours had elapsed before the command had formulated a plan to extinguish the fires.
Soares said that fire fighters attacked fires with little direction and no orders; they were just simply placed in locations where there was fire. He believes that once the command posts were in position after the first 42 hours, there was much better organisation on the ground.
Referring back to the chaos of the scene, Soares compared the event to “a war that needed the most competent of commanders”.
