Portugal with the highest percentage of burned area in Europe
Portugal is the country with the highest percentage of burned area in Europe in relation to the size of the country, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
The area burned in the country since January has already exceeded 84 thousand hectares of bush and forest. Portugal is not at the top of the percentage of burned area and is the third with the largest burned area, behind Romania and Spain.
The figures from the European Forest Fire Information System estimation system point to more than 700 thousand hectares burnedmaking this the second worst year for fires on the continent on record.
However, in statements to Renaissanceclimatologist Carlos da Câmara argues that the reading has to be done by normalizing the total area and, in this chapter, Portugal is in first place, registering the highest percentage of burned area this year.
Almost 1% of the entire Portuguese territory burned in 2022, with the country approaching the national average of 1.05%. In this regard, Romania and Spain are far below Portugal, with 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively.
The area burned this year represents 0.15% of the European Union and corresponds to almost triple the size of Luxembourg or 10% of Ireland.
another year seen such a low amount of scorched earth in Europe until mid-August.
The area burned in Portugal has already tripled on Tuesday from the whole of last year, when around 26 thousand hectares burned, but far below the area burned in the worst year of the country in terms of fires: 2017, when 564 thousand hectares burned , more than half of the entire area burned in Europe that year.
Until this Tuesday, more than 84 thousand hectares of bush and forest had been burned, making 2022 the 4th with the largest burned area in the last decade. Only the years 2017, 2016 and 2013 recorded a greater burned territory. Even so, this year is for now in the top 10 of years with the largest burned area.
The year of 20 thousand hectares was the worst in terms of burned area in Portugal, when 20 thousand hectares were destroyed with the fire in Seia, in the district of Guarda, being the fire with more than 43 thousand hectares.
According to the ICNF, more than 27,000 hectares burned in the fires in Pedrógão Grande.
Only two years can match the area burned this year, when 426,000 hectares were burned in 2003 and 338,000 hectares in 2005.
“Nature will take care of us if we don’t take care of her”
For climatologist Carlos da Câmara, Portugal continues to have an “excessive dependence on weather conditions” in fighting fires and explains that the fact that the country has a higher percentage of burned area may be in those who belong to forest areas.
“There is a difference between Spain and France. In these countries, the State owns most of the forested areas, unlike Portugal, where most of these two areas of forest and bush are distributed by small landowners who have nothing to do with treating what they have”, he says. .
The expert also points to the Renaissance solutions to “change the fire” to other times of the year, such as some the use of fire control and introduction of livestock into specific zones.
“We have to find terms for a new balance between a way to make the weather more severe, which becomes completely different, and a new population dynamic, with a change. Nature will take care of us if we don’t take care of her.”
Carlos da Câmara that climate change is “the greatest resistance to which we have a reference that we are able to get used to” and that the nature is “trying to find a balance that is not one that we don’t like”.