The president of the Agency for the Integrated Management of Rural Fires (AGIF) called on MPs this Thursday to “get out of the discussion of air resources” and “eucalyptus”, considering that these issues do not solve the problem of forest fires.
In the parliamentary committee on Agriculture and Fisheries, where he was heard regarding the activity report of the Integrated Rural Fire Management System of 2022, Tiago Oliveira stated that “not so many aerial means are needed” to fight forest fires, this being a technical indication and knowledge.
However, he acknowledged that it is difficult for the political power “to face a majority of the population that wants more air resources”.
The president of AGIF, an entity that is under the supervision of the Prime Minister, asked the deputies to “get out of the discussion of the air and the eucalyptus issue.” “The political discourse of blaming eucalyptus, in my opinion, is completely wrong, the political discourse of saying that this is solved with more air means is also wrong, because we know that air means do not solve, they make it more expensive. The fire is solved on the ground with hoes,” he said.
Tiago Oliveira insisted that “as long as we keep talking about eucalyptus and air resources, the basic issues will not be resolved”.
The same official also questioned the fact that “fire departments receive according to the burned area”, considering the “perverse objective”.
The president of AGIF also stressed that “there are municipalities spending half a million euros, a barbarity of money on firefighters, when they do not spend money managing the forest”, and it is necessary to balance prevention and combat.
Tiago Oliveira admitted that there are still “nuisances” in the country. “There is a set of resistances of a political nature, of distribution of power, of non-compliance with the procedure of powers, of unverified monies that have to be scalped,” he said.
Asked about the fire that broke out on Tuesday in the municipality of Cascais, the president of AGIF replied that “from the point of view of civil protection and combat it went well” and that “it could hardly have other consequences” due to the meteorological conditions of humidity and wind that “were very favorable”. “It was a manageable situation, there was coordination and articulation. Cascais is one of the best prepared municipalities to manage situations of that complexity,” he said.
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