Fires in Portugal. “There are few signs that we are on the right path”
The essential in terms of prevention and is fighting fires “still to be done”, to the Renaissance Nuno Guiomar, researcher at the University of Évora, expert in forest fires and landscape dynamics.
At a time when it is back again, in a scenario of drought and high temperatures, and five years after the tragedy of Pedrógão Grande, Nuno Guiomar considers that some measures take time, “but there are few signs that we are on the opposite path in this time”.
In statements to Renaissancethe researcher begins by mentioning that “it would be tremendously unfair to say that there was no evolution whatsoever”.
Elenca, for example, published a national plan developed by the Agency for the Elaborated Management of Rural Fires and there were some Landscape Transformation Plans, “but there is always a but underlined”.
“We are not managing to change all the mechanisms that can make a landscape more resistant to fire, particularly as occupations and agricultural uses that have been abandoned over time and that are a little at the root of this landscape susceptible to fire and with more continuous products”, says Nuno Guiomar.
The forest fire expert considers that “we have a more or less installed operating system, but then the financing mechanisms do not follow what is planned”.
Nuno Guio suggests that it can move to small agriculture, which creates village funding zones for fires around the measures.
“For example, the notion of the small, of vegetable gardens and small cultures, around the agglomerates disappeared and were replaced by a pagan society that leaned against the houses… protect the building”, he highlights.
For Nuno Guiomar, Portugal must also begin to look at fire differently.
“Resizing the device has to be based on the potential fire damage. This means that there are periods of the year, in certain places, that are more serious, so that they are not consumed later by fires that are much more intense and severe”, concluded the researcher.