To Lusa, the commander of the Santo Tirso Volunteer Firefighters, Pedro Santos, explained that the fire raging “in several points of the municipality, with several active fronts,” started in the neighboring municipality of Paços de Ferreira, Porto district.
“At the moment we have one of the fronts under control, but there are several fronts. The situation is starting to become calmer, the forecast is that the wind will decrease [in intensity] in the coming hours, and we hope that with this, the fire will give us some respite,” he said at 11:00 AM, adding that 102 operatives were on the ground, supported by 32 vehicles and one aerial asset.
According to the official, “during the early hours, there were houses at risk, which were evacuated as a precaution.”
A source from the municipality told Lusa that most of the people evacuated from their homes during the night were elderly who have already returned to their homes this morning.
Seven people have died and about 50 have been injured in the fires that have been affecting the North and Central regions of the country since Sunday, in the districts of Aveiro, Porto, Vila Real, Braga, and Viseu, which have destroyed dozens of houses and forced road and highway closures.
The burned area in mainland Portugal since Sunday exceeds 62,000 hectares, according to the European Copernicus system, which shows that in the North and Central regions, 47,376 hectares have already burned.
According to the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), today at 11:00 AM, 38 fires were ongoing, of which 15 were considered significant occurrences involving more than 3,000 operatives, supported by about a thousand ground assets and 25 aerial assets.
The Government declared a state of calamity in all municipalities affected by the fires in recent days and extended the state of alert until Thursday, given the weather forecasts.
