Declaration of an Alert Situation in view of the worsening risk of rural fires

Declaration of an Alert Situation

In view of the weather forecasts for the coming days, which point to a significant increase in the risk of rural fires, the Ministers of National Defense, Internal Administration, Environment and Climate Action and Agriculture, decided on Wednesday to declare an Alert Situation throughout Portugal..

The Alert Situation covers the period between 00:00 on August 6th and 23:59 on August 7th.

The declaration follows the activation of the Red Level Special Alert Status for the districts of Bragança, Guarda, Vila Real, Beja, Castelo Branco, Faro and Viseu.

The districts of Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra, Évora, Leiria, Portalegre, Porto, Santarém and Viana do Castelo will be under a Special Orange Alert.

The districts of Lisbon and Setúbal will be under a Special Yellow Alert.

This declaration stems from the need to adopt preventive and special reaction measures in the face of the maximum and very high fire risk forecast by the IPMA in most of the municipalities over the next few days.

The following exceptional measures will be implemented as part of the Declaration of an Alert Situation, provided for in the Basic Law on Civil Protection:

1) Prohibition of access, circulation and permanence within the forest areas previously defined in the Municipal Plans for the Defense of the Forest Against Fires, as well as on forest paths, rural paths and other roads that cross them;
2) A ban on burning and the burning of farm waste;
3) A total ban on the use of fireworks or other pyrotechnic artifacts, regardless of their combustion form, as well as the suspension of authorizations that have been issued in districts where the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority has declared a State of Special Red Alert;
4) A ban on carrying out work in forest areas using any type of machinery, with the exception of work associated with fighting rural fires;
5) Prohibition on carrying out work in other rural areas using motorized brush cutters with metal blades or disks, brush cutters, shredders and machines with blades or front shovels.

The ban does not apply:

1) Work associated with feeding and watering animals, phytosanitary treatment or fertilization, watering, pruning, harvesting and transporting agricultural crops, as long as it is essential and unavoidable and takes place in irrigated areas or areas devoid of forests, bushes or flammable materials, and there is no danger of ignition;
2) The extraction of cork by manual methods and the extraction (cresta) of honey, provided that it is carried out without the use of fumigation methods obtained by incandescent material or temperature generators;
3) Construction work, provided that it cannot be postponed and that adequate rural fire risk mitigation measures have been adopted.

The Declaration of an Alert Situation implies, among other things:

A) The increase in the level of readiness and operational response by the GNR and PSP, with reinforcement of means for surveillance operations, inspection, patrols to deter behavior and general support for protection and rescue operations that may be triggered, considering that the interruption of vacation leave and the suspension of days off and rest periods are authorized for this purpose;
B) Increasing the level of readiness and mobilization of emergency medical, public health and psychosocial support teams, by the competent health and social security entities, through their respective supervisors;
C) The permanent deployment of Forestry Sapper teams;
D) The permanent mobilization of the National Corps of Forestry Agents and Nature Watchers that are part of the fire prevention and firefighting system, by the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests, I. P., through the respective authority;
E) The GNR will carry out patrols (surveillance) and aerial inspections using Air Force resources, in the districts in a state of special alert under SIOPS, for DECIR, focusing on the places marked with a very high and maximum risk of fire.

In addition to the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority issuing warnings to the population about the danger of rural fires, the Air Force – through the Ministry of National Defense – must make air resources available so that, if necessary, they can be operational at locations to be determined by the ANEPC..

Pode ver a publicação oficial em:

https://www.portugal.gov.pt/pt/gc22/comunicacao/comunicado?i=declaracao-da-situacao-de-alerta-face-ao-agravamento-do-risco-de-incendio-rural