Portugal battles ferocious wildfires as toll rises to seven

Silhouettes of people watching the progression of a wildfire are pictured at Veiga village in Agueda, Aveiro on September 17, 2024. Agence France-Presse

AGUEDA, Portugal — Thousands of firefighters on Tuesday battled wildfires in Portugal that have killed seven people and burnt more land in a matter of days than the rest of the summer combined.

Fanned by bellowing winds in the stifling heat, the three largest fires concentrated in the northern Aveiro region scorched some 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) by Monday evening, according to a civil protection report.

Three firefighters died on Tuesday when their vehicle was trapped by the flames, civil protection authorities said, bringing the fire-related toll up to seven, with some 50 injured.

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The two women and a man were killed while fighting flames in the central region of Coimbra, the interior ministry said. The trio was previously reported to have been killed in the north.

Across the Iberian nation, more than 4,500 firefighters, more than 1,000 vehicles and around 20 aircraft on Tuesday were battling some 50 fires in all, with an alert warning in force since Saturday afternoon extended until Thursday evening.

“We’re in for some very difficult times over the next few days,” Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro — who cancelled all his Tuesday engagements in response to the blaze — warned on Monday evening.

‘Nobody is sleeping here’

“Nobody is sleeping here, we’ve been up since two o’clock in the morning,” Maria Ludivina Castanheira, 63, said in the village of Arrancada, south of the coastal city of Porto, where villagers hurried to a small warehouse to fight a fire there.

“We opened the cages so that the pigeons could escape” and “we moved the chickens to a neighbour’s,” Antonia Estima, 39, said as she took a break from helping to fight the flames.

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Portuguese authorities have invoked the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to obtain eight additional firefighting aircraft.

Following the two Canadair water bombers sent from Spain on Monday, aircraft made available by France, Italy and Greece were also expected to arrive.

In the municipality of Albergaria-a-Velha, a 28-year-old Brazilian employed by a forestry company died after he became trapped by the flames as he tried to collect some tools.

Another person suffered a heart attack on Monday, while on Sunday a volunteer firefighter died suddenly while taking a lunch break from battling a blaze near Oliveira de Azemeis in hard-hit Aveiro.

Raging since the weekend before worsening on Monday, the blazes have also left around 50 people injured, including 33 firefighters, according to the latest figures from the authorities.

Several roads are still cut off in the northern Portuguese districts of Aveiro, Viseu, Vila Real, Braga and Porto as well as in the central Coimbra region.

Monday saw the highest fire-risk weather conditions in the northern half of the country since 2001, according to experts interviewed by the weekly Expresso.

Scientists say that fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency and intensity of heatwaves across the world.

The rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons and increasing the area burnt in the flames, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.