“The fire was considered under control at 23:36, but work will continue safely for the next few days to avoid any re-ignition,” explained Lusa Agency Commander Pedro Araujo, of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC). .), about the fire that consumed, as of Friday night, more than 17 thousand hectares.
Pedro Araujo stressed that “many hours of work are still expected” in the field, where a large number of resources will be maintained.
“From now on, we enter what is known as the post-consolidation phase, then we move to the monitoring phase, and given the scale of this fire, most of these assets will remain in the theater for many hours,” he stressed, stressing that work will take place “during the next week.”
By 00:30, according to the ANEPC website, 1,539 firefighters were on site, supported by 449 ground assets.
The fire broke out at dawn on August 6 in Garrocho, in the municipality of Covilha, in the region of Castelo Branco, and then spread to the Guarda region, in the municipalities of Mantegas, Gouveia, Guarda and Celorico da Beira.
The ANEPC commander also explained that the key thing at this moment is vigilance to avoid any reactivation of the fire and the ability to “intervene at the appropriate time to extinguish it.”
“There are always unburned areas but with hot spots and at any time the fires can activate on these islands. Being vigilant so we can intervene in a muscular way and control will be a concern in the coming hours,” he said.
Pedro Araujo also stressed that the fire, which occurred at an altitude of over a thousand meters and was only hours away from completing seven days in the active phase, had “very special characteristics, in terms of progression and vegetation, in an area that did not burn for a while. Long.“Several years, with a very large dead blanket, a very high heat load, releasing a lot of energy.”
“Mountain fires have certain characteristics, but they naturally create many difficulties for operators, both in terms of advancement on the ground, as well as in terms of their ability to transport material or water, or to strengthen the lines of fire. It is not enough for the medium of air to bring down the water. It is necessary,” he explained. Work on the ground and separate the green from the burner, so that there is no continuity.
According to the European Copernican Monitoring System, more than 17,000 hectares had already burned as of Friday night in a fire in Serra da Estrela.
At stake is a designated natural park area, but according to a response sent Friday to Lusa by the National Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “nothing indicates that the Estrella Geopark is losing this designation solely due to causes related to forest fires.”
By 19:00, the Civil Protection had already reported that the fire was “stable” but “not yet under control”.
Also late on Friday afternoon, the Minister of Internal Administration, Jose Luis Carneiro, considered the fire that broke out on Saturday in Garucho “a tragedy from the point of view of the environment, biodiversity and ecological heritage”.
On Friday morning, the Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, defended that when the fire ends in Serra da Estrela, it must be studied “in detail” what could have been done in the end to prevent the spread of the fire. Which you ended up buying.
At 00:30 today, the only big fire broke out in Casal da Pereira, Tomar, in the province of Santarem, since 19:48 on Friday, in an “inaccessible” area, commander Pedro Lusa explained. .
According to the situation at 23:15, the fire had three fronts, one of which had already prevailed, and it was burning in the area of pines and eucalyptus trees, with a creeper machine that was designed for the theater of operations, due to the difficulty of access, said the commander of the ANEPC.
By 00:30 today, 192 personnel and 55 vehicles were still at the site, and the fire was “target to reinforce the means.”
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