By Pedro Nunes and Miguel Pereira
VIZEU DISTRICT, Portugal (Reuters) – Thousands of firefighters tackling deadly wildfires in central and northern Portugal had largely doused the flames in the Aveiro district, one of the worst-hit, as of Thursday morning, and were focusing on a dozen blazes still raging elsewhere.
After five days of ravaging tens of thousands of hectares of forest and farmland, destroying houses and claiming seven lives, the fires in Oliveira de Azemeis, Albergaria-a-Velha and Sever da Vouga in the northwestern district of Aveiro were no longer listed as active on the civil protection service’s fires portal.
Cooler air temperatures with more humidity since Wednesday have helped the firefighting efforts after an unseasonably hot streak during which gusts of wind had propagated the flames.
The weather agency IPMA predicted maximum temperatures of 22-27 degrees Celsius on Thursday across the central and northern regions, well below those recorded in recent days, which exceeded 30 C.
On Wednesday, a 270-strong Spanish military emergencies team joined the effort to help exhausted emergency workers in the central Vizeu district adjacent to Aveiro. As many as 12 aircraft were backing hundreds of firefighters combating flames near the town of Castro Daire in the district.
Spain, Italy, France and Morocco have water-bombing aircraft.
Data from the European Forest Fire Information Service showed that large-scale blazes had burned an area of more than 105,000 hectares (405 square miles) since Saturday, making this year’s total of some 140,000 ha the widest burned area since 2017, when Portugal suffered two devastating waves of wildfires that killed more than 100 people.
At least some of the dozens of fires across Portugal have been started by arsonists, motivated by possible commercial interest, spite or criminal negligence, authorities said. Police have arrested at least 13 people since Saturday suspected of starting fires.
A case study called ‘Forest Fires in Portugal in 2017’ by multiple authors including from the European Commission’s joint research centre showed that arson accounted for nearly 36% of the deadly fires in October 2017, about the same as negligent fire use.
(Reporting by Andrei Khalip and Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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