FRANCE 24 English published July 30, 2025: Portugal battles three large wildfires.
Almost 2,700 firefighters battled Tuesday to contain forest blazes across Portugal that have led to almost the whole country being put on high alert for fires. Seventeen major fires blazed with the most serious in the centre and north of the country.
OKportugal published August 22, 2025: Portugal Wildfires 2025 - What It’s Really Like Living Here.
We're half way through Portugal’s 2025 fire season and we are experiencing the largest single wildfire in the country’s history, already burning through hundreds of square kilometres of land in central Portugal. In this video, we share what it’s really like living here as the fires rage nearby... how we protect our farm, the safety measures we’ve taken, and the reality of life surrounded by smoke, fear, and uncertainty.
We also share practical tips on protecting your property during a wildfire, staying safe, and preparing in case the fire reaches your land. This is not just news... this is what it feels like to live through Portugal’s biggest wildfire.
AP Archive published August 19, 2025: Firefighters and local residents battle wildfires in Portugal.
Euractiv.com
written by AFP staff
Saturday September 6, 2025
Hundreds of firefighters battled fresh wildfires in Portugal and Spain on Saturday, civil protection authorities said, following a summer of devastating blazes in the region.
The biggest fire raged in Seia, central Portugal, where 600 firefighters were deployed to tackle the flames, fanned by strong winds, and several roads had to be closed, the civil protection agency said.
The priority was "to protect homes", the Lusa news agency quoted a civil protection spokesperson as saying.
Police said had they arrested a person suspected of starting the fire.
Central and northern Portugal were also ravaged in August by devastating wildfires that killed four people and caused several injuries.
The Portugal fires destroyed about 254,000 hectares, the worst such toll since 2017, according to data from the National Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation.
Portugal experienced the hottest summer since 1931 this year, the national meteorological agency said on Friday.
**********
Euronews.com
written by Lina Ferreira
Friday August 29, 2025
Police say the boy said he was frustrated because of poor results in school and faced difficulties in socialising with his peers.
A 14-year-old boy has admitted deliberately starting several wildfires in Portugal by riding to forest areas on a scooter and using matches to start a blaze in an interview with police.
Officers believe he may have been responsible for blazes in Seidões, Ardegão and Arnozela.
"The minor may have acted out of anger and frustration, given his poor school performance and the obvious precariousness of his social relationships," the national criminal police, the Polícia Judiciária, said in a statement, adding that they hadn't ruled out the boy acting as part of a group.
Police launched an investigation after wildfires repeatedly began in the same areas.
"During the summer period, these parishes were systematically ravaged by forest fires, sometimes on a daily basis, causing concern among the local population and consuming several hectares of forest," the police statement said.
The Braga Judicial Police, which carried out the investigation, handed the case over to the Public Prosecutor's Office, which will then take it to the Family and Children's Court.
By 20 August, police had already arrested 52 people on suspicion of arson. The data, compiled by the Lusa news agency, showed most of the arrests were made in August.
Vinhais fire under control
Emergency services said that on Friday morning, 97 fires were still burning but most are under control and in the process of being extinguished.
The fire in the municipality of Vinhais is reportedly the only one that is still significantly active and posing a danger. More than 400 firefighters, 140 vehicles and six planes were deployed to the area to tackle the fire on Friday.
The blaze, which started on Tuesday morning, is active on three fronts, one of which is difficult to access. But on the other two fronts, "most of its perimeter is under control", a regional commander of the civil protection agency told the Lusa news agency.
Temperatures have been dropping over the last week, helping firefighting efforts, and on Friday after expected to be anywhere between 14 and 32 degrees Celsius, with cloudy skies almost everywhere in the country.
However, the Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) has still placed the entire interior and south of the country on maximum alert for very high risk of wildfires.
*****BUT THEY PUSH THIS BULLSHIT******
DW, Germany local
written by Holly Young
Thursday September 4, 2025
Intense wildfires that burned through large swathes of Spain and Portugal this summer — claiming at least eight lives and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate — were massively fueled by climate change, according to a new report published on Thursday.
It states that climate change — driven primarily by the burning of oil, gas and coal — has made the weather conditions that fueled the wildfires 40 times more frequent and 30% more intense. The analysis came from the World Weather Attribution, a group of international scientists who study global warming's role in extreme weather.
The sheer size of the fires has "been astonishing", said Clair Barnes, one of the report's authors and researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. "Hotter, drier and more flammable conditions are becoming more severe with climate change and are giving rise to fires of unprecedented intensity."
Climate change making fires more frequent and intense
The wildfires, which started at the end of July and raged for weeks, scorched more than 380,000 hectares in Spain and 260,000 hectares [or 642,473 acres (emphasis mine)] in Portugal. Together they accounted for two-thirds of burned land in Europe, which this year broke records by surpassing 1 million hectares, an area bigger than the island of Cyprus.
1 hectare = 2.47 acres. (emphasis mine)
While wildfires are a natural annual occurrence, intensified drought and rising temperatures are creating hot, dry, windy weather that makes them burn faster, longer and more ferociously. In Europe, as around the globe, they are becoming more frequent, intense and widespread.
The rapid analysis examined weather observations from the region, including Spain's hottest ten consecutive days on record which preceded the fires. It concluded the Spanish heatwave was 200 times more likely and 3 degrees Celsius hotter because of climate change.
Heatwaves of a similar intensity would be expected less than every 2,500 years in a world without climate change, whereas today — at current levels of 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) warming — they are likely to occur every 13 years, say scientists.
World urgently needs to shift away from fossil fuels
So far this year, wildfires in the EU have released 38 million tons of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for heating the planet. This puts the continent on track to break CO2 emission records in 2025.
Smoke from wildfires also significantly impacts health, with particles emitted able to enter the lungs and bloodstream. Recent studies have linked wildfire smoke to 1.53 million deaths per year around the world.
Experts in the report said the Spanish and Portuguese fires were a sign of what is to come as temperatures continue to rise, and ultimately stressed the urgency of stopping burning fossil fuels.
"The wildfires in Europe show that 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming today is already incredibly dangerous," said Friederike Otto, one of the report's authors and professor in climate science at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. "Without a faster shift away from fossil fuels, we could hit 3 degrees C this century. Wildfires at this level would be catastrophic."
No comments:
Post a Comment