More than 1,900 firefighters, supported by 600 vehicles and 15 aerial resources, were fighting rural fires in mainland Portugal this afternoon, with emphasis on the fires in Vila Real and Celorico de Basto (Braga).
According to information available on the website of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), the fire scrubland in Vila Real, which broke out just before midnight on Saturday remains active. It is currently the one mobilizing the largest number of combat resources, with 425 firefighters, 143 vehicles and six firefighting planes/ helicopters.
Also fire in Celorico de Basto, in the district of Braga, broke out on Saturday at 6:20 pm and is still ongoing – being fought by 289 operators, supported by 98 vehicles and two aerial resources.
These two fires were, at 3:00 pm today, considered significant incidents, in addition to two other rural fires, one in scrubland in Arcos de Valdevez, in the district of Viana do Castelo, which broke out on Sunday at 8:13 pm and is still active, being fought by 53 operators, with 18 vehicles and one aircraft.
The other fire among the significant incidents is that of Ponte da Barca, in the district of Viana do Castelo, which started more than a week ago – on July 26 at 9:47 pm – and which has been under control since Sunday, but continues to mobilize hundreds of Civil Protection agents, namely 364 operatives and 122 land resources, according to information provided by ANEPC.
For Civil Protection, significant occurrences are those that, cumulatively, meet the criteria of: “ongoing” status (evolving without area limitation) or “concluding” (without danger of propagation), duration of more than three hours and more than 15 protection and rescue resources involved.
Mainland Portugal is on alert until Thursday due to the high risk of fires.
The five northernmost districts of Bragança, Porto, Vila Real, Viana do Castelo and Braga, are under a red alert, the highest on a scale of three, due to the persistence of extremely high maximum temperature values. The red warning will last until 6 pm tomorrow, when it will be replaced by an orange warning (in the case of Vila Real and Bragança), and yellow in the remaining cases.
The remaining districts of mainland Portugal are already under an orange warning until 6:00 pm on Tuesday, with the exception of Beja, which will be yellow, and Faro, which is once again the only district on the mainland without any warning.
Source: LUSA
