The fury of mayors and populations in Portugal’s fire-ravaged north and central regions is palpable. The political consequences of the last catastrophic weeks are becoming increasingly evident.
What is no longer even contested is that the country’s current government has ‘failed’ – not because the fires exist (Portugal’s summers are characterised by forest fires), but because those in charge have not been seen to respond in any way adequately.
Beyond an apparent lack of management strategy, there has been no empathy, say critics. The worst example of this latter failure was last Thursday evening when the prime minister and members of government held their traditional ‘political rentrée’ Festa do Pontal (PSD party event) in Quarteira, in the Algarve, while further north exhausted firefighters battled monster blazes, villagers struggled with hoses to save each other’s homes and mayors shouted themselves hoarse in thick orange smoke pleading for ‘more resources’.
Even news anchor Rodrigo Guedes de Carvalho remarked that there seemed to be “two Portugals” on that day: one where political leaders stood bronzed and relaxed congratulating each other on ‘possibilities for the future’, and another where everyday people grappled in stultifying temperatures to stay alive in the face of terrifying certainties.
To make matters so much worse, the next day – once the PSD Festa do Pontal was over – the government actioned the European Civil Protection Mechanism.
As Rui Rocha, former leader of Iniciativa Liberal, wrote over social network ‘X’: “Yesterday it wasn’t necessary to action the European Mechanism for wildfires. Today it was. What changed? Simple: yesterday it was Pontal, and it would have been even more embarrassing to party while requesting European help. The arrival of help had to wait for the end of the party.”
Rui Rocha was one of the few political voices piping up last week. This has since all changed. CHEGA is calling for the dismissal of the Minister of Interior Administration, and an urgent debate in parliament on the ‘calamitous situation of wildfires’; PS Socialists are pushing for the ‘urgent’ convening of the Civil Protection Commission (an entity that could organise financial support for people who have lost land, crops, their businesses and livelihoods for the foreseeable future) and PCP communists have called for an urgent extraordinary meeting of the parliamentary permanent commission, to which it seeks the presence of the prime minister.
A man watches as a wildfire rages near a house in Granja do Paiva, Sernancelhe municipality, Viseu district, on August 14, 2025. (EPA/Pedro Sarmento Costa)
With the prime minister already seen as one of the ‘most disconnected’ characters in the current drama, the reality is that the League of Portuguese Firefighters has seized the moment to petition President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
League president António Nunes explains that firefighters have been aware of glaring failings in the whole system of firefighting in Portugal since it was ‘tweaked’ in the days of Socialist prime minister António Costa to remove ‘district Civil Protection command’ posts and replace them with regional ‘sub commands’.
“The current system does not work,” he told reporters on Monday. “It is an aberration from an operational point of view. Everyone recognises this, but no one has been able to change the situation yet. And the change is easy: it is the return to district command units.”
He stressed that both Luís Montenegro’s governments have shown their intention to return to district commands, but, in the words of Correio da Manhã, they “have not had the courage to do so in time for this summer (…) and the results are plain to see”.
Now, António Nunes is preparing to show President Marcelo the League’s various proposals for improving Portugal’s fire combat … in future.
They were outlined to a parliamentary committee over a year ago (in other words, in time for last summer’s firefighting). At the time, Nunes stressed that the various top brass in Civil Protection “should have left a long time ago” due to their “manifest inability to organise the system”.
Fast-forward to this summer, and the numbers of people in fire-ravaged areas telling reporters of the lack of firefighters; the lack of aerial resources; the lack of information (as communications collapsed due to fire damages to overhead cables), and the total lack of empathy, or even apparent concern.
Even in the past (which has not been glorious), ministers of interior administration were seen in fire-ravaged areas, wearing Civil Protection identity vests, looking hot and concerned. This year, there is none of that: no prime minister visiting communities (even post-fire trauma); no minister seen either.
As one red-faced, tired-looking man caught up in the Fundão blaze told reporters on Monday: “It’s always the same: they are all over you when they want your vote, but when they get into power, you don’t see them anywhere …”
And the ‘tragedy’ for the current government is that their uncontested failures are being felt less than two months before municipal elections in which they hope to make significant gains. Now, leader writers are predicting that the party likely to make significant gains is the one that has been most vocal about the failings: CHEGA, the party whose leader makes no bones about it. He is preparing his party for government.
All this will play out as the months pass, but Portugal is still not out of the wildfire storm. The country is already registering the largest percentage of burnt territory in the European Union this year (roughly 200,000 hectares, or 2.3% of national territory) – 62,000 hectares of which burnt over the weekend and Monday – and there is still so much more of the hot weather to get through.
The prime minister was seen on Tuesday at the funeral of the second victim of these fires, firefighter Daniel Agrelo. He heard shouts from bystanders telling him he was “not welcome in this town”. For a man who pledged to run the country for “all, all, all”, the test of these fires has proved how words can never be enough. People need to see actions.
Also: Man arrested in Loulé on suspicion of starting wildfire
