Portugal warns UK tourists of 'absolute chaos' after four deaths

Portugal warns UK tourists of 'absolute chaos' after four deaths
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


Portugal holidaymakers have been warned the European Union hotspot is "absolute chaos" after a deadly wildfire. Northern Portugal has seen a deadly wildfire sweep in the past few days, with holidaymakers warned over four deaths and at least seven injuries, with 81 homes damaged.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, one European Union resident said: “I’ll be sick about all this in two months, but right now I have too much to do to be able to cry." The fires killed nine people, injured dozens more and burned 100,000 hectares of land across northern and central areas.

Branding the country in "absolute chaos", another said: “There’s no comparison at all. We’re used to having these cyclical fires here every 10 years or so … but the amount of energy the fire created, the amount of damage it did and the intensity and violence of the fire were something we’d never seen before.”

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“Every municipality has its own fire protection plan, most of them updated, and new ones were also approved for the regional and sub-regional levels,” says a spokesperson. “There are several projects intended to diversify land use and forest occupation, namely around villages and towns in forested areas.”

The weather conditions on Monday brought the highest risk of fire in northern Portugal since 2001, experts said. Portugal’s prime minister, Luís Montenegro, who cancelled his Tuesday engagements in response to the fires, also said the country faced “some very difficult times over the next few days”

Miguel Bugalho, who teaches forest and wildlife conservation at the University of Lisbon, warned: “Sometimes people aren’t aware that forest fires are symptoms of some very structural causes that are down to socioeconomic reasons.

“We need financial support so people can keep their vegetation at low levels, but we also need to find completely novel land-use systems, such as the mosaic approach that you see in some areas.”