Damages to tourism sector came to €2.7 million
The fire last month in the municipality of Odemira (Beja district) caused €7 million worth of damage to homes, said the mayor – confirming total damages will be “between €9 million and €11 million”.
“We’re talking about €2.7 million worth of damages in the tourism sector, but also around €7 million with regard to homes, which is, in fact, overwhelming,” mayor Hélder Guerreiro (PS), told Lusa today, after a formal session commemorating Odemira’s Municipal Day.
After estimating at the beginning of the week that the damage caused by the fire that broke out August 5 ‘could be around €10 million, Guerreiro confirmed that “the process of surveying the amounts in question is basically finished.
Of the homes that were damaged, “some” were totally destroyed, others suffered only partial damage.
To all the various calculations the municipality still has to “add the accounts for agriculture, which we don’t have yet”, he said.
A final figure will be presented by Odemira Town Hall next week (on September 12), when Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa, will be visiting for a second time since the fires.
Guerreiro said he hopes Abrunhosa will confirm the government’s willingness to provide financial support to those affected.
Even so, he recognised that there will be “situations that, perhaps, may not be supported, namely secondary housing or houses that didn’t have the legal process complete“.
“We’re also going to try to find solutions with the people,” he added.
At the moment, the municipality has already started “working on prevention, namely water lines that are blocked.
“We’ve already started work on rehabilitating water lines and also some hillsides, which need work to prevent run-off and landslides” when it finally rains.
The fire in the municipality of Odemira raged for six days after breaking out in area of scrubland and pine forest in Baiona, within the parish of São Teotónio.
The fire reached the neighbouring Algarve municipalities of Monchique and Aljezur; the area burnt came to around 8,400 hectares, with a perimeter of 50 kms.
At today’s municipal day commemorations, the mayor once again thanked “the commitment of all the agents involved in fighting”, and praised “the incredible movement of solidarity” that has played out “beyond the municipality.
“It’s these and other experiences that make Odemira a municipality of people who don’t give up and who turn their apparent disadvantages into strengths,” he said.
LUSA
