The government, including myself and the Minister of Internal Administration, have been consistently in charge, monitoring the situation on the ground and coordinating the political actions under our responsibility. We were present before, during, and after each event,” stated Luís Montenegro at the beginning of the debate in the Standing Committee of the Assembly regarding the wildfire situation in Portugal.
The Prime Minister emphasized that the government was proactive by “acting in prevention and preparing the combat system,” engaged during the crisis “by coordinating and deciding the alert situation and cooperation between various ministries and departments,” and responsive post-wildfire by “quickly supporting the most affected people and businesses.”
“Indeed: we can and must evaluate the effectiveness and execution of these actions, but it must be clearly stated that the notion of no prevention on the ground is false,” he remarked.
Alongside Minister of Internal Administration Maria Lúcia Amaral, dressed in a black tie, Luís Montenegro highlighted several preventive measures taken by the government, noting the enhancement of the forest firefighting program, fire control measures, authorizations for burning on 3,562 hectares, and the establishment of 50 more integrated landscape management operations, up from the previous 12.
Furthermore, Luís Montenegro reiterated that the current firefighting system is the “largest ever,” involving “76 aerial resources, 869 more operatives than last year, and 238 additional firefighting vehicles.”
The head of the executive acknowledged, however, that despite these “preventive measures and the assessment, the force of the enemy was immense,” underlining that there were “25 continuous days of extreme meteorological severity,” with “over 65% of incidents occurring between August 1 and 20.”
“And despite initial intervention success rates exceeding 93% and responses arriving on average 15 minutes after ignition, we could not prevent large fires in terms of both size and duration,” he conceded.
Montenegro mentioned that the government is working to prevent such severe situations from recurring in September and October, emphasizing the importance of understanding what happened and why there were “high levels of spreading and reignition.”
The Prime Minister also mentioned that investigations are underway by specialized teams into arson crimes and their “possible link between these criminal activities and some economic interests,” noting that by August 24, 113 people were detained, compared to 60 last year, “and more than a thousand people were questioned in these investigations.”
At the conclusion of his intervention, Luís Montenegro acknowledged the government’s duty to explain its actions and the “oppositions to scrutinize the government’s actions,” but made a call for consensus.
“We count on everyone’s efforts to converge on solving this serious scourge that unfortunately affects us every year,” he declared.
Earlier, at the start of his intervention, the Prime Minister expressed condolences for the four citizens who died fighting the wildfires and wished a “quick and complete recovery” to those injured, also expressing “deep gratitude” to all those involved in combating the fires.
[Updated at 3:43 PM]
