Smoke hampers efforts to fight fire
PEDROGAO GRANDE, Portugal — More than 2,000 firefighters in Portugal battled Monday to contain major wildfires in the central region of the country, where one blaze killed 62 people, while authorities came under mounting criticism for not doing more to prevent the tragedy.
Reinforcements, including more water-dropping planes from Spain, France and Italy, were due to arrive as part of a European Union cooperation program, officials said.
However, giant clouds of smoke were preventing the deployment of water-dropping aircraft on wildfires in the central region of the country where 62 people have died, officials said.
Civil Protection Agency commander Elisio Oliveira told reporters Monday morning that cooler night-time temperatures helped firefighters bring some blazes under control.
However, some of the wildfires are still racing through inaccessible parts of hill ranges about 150 km northeast of Lisbon.
Portugal is observing three days of national mourning after the deaths Saturday night around the town of Pedrogao Grande, which is by far the deadliest on record.
Scorching weather, with temperatures surpassing 40 C, as well as strong winds and dry woodland after weeks with little rain fuelled the blazes.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s leading environmental lobby group, Quercus, issued a statement Monday blaming the blazes on “forest management errors and bad political decisions” by governments over recent decades.
The association rebuked authorities for allowing the planting of huge swathes of eucalyptus, the country’s most common and most profitable species — but one that’s often blamed for stoking blazes.
Emergency services have been criticized for not closing a road where 47 of the deaths occurred as people fled the flames Saturday night. The government has acknowledged that the huge fires occasionally led to a breakdown in communications.
Wildfires are an annual scourge in Portugal. Between 1993 and 2013, Portugal recorded the highest annual number of forest fires in southern Europe, according to a report last year by the European Environment Agency.