Can anything be done to stop Portugal’s deadly forest fires?

Forest fires are an almost annual occurrence in Portugal, but the shocking death toll of last week’s blaze makes it the worst in half a century, said João Miguel Tavares in Público (Lisbon). A total of 64 people died, seemingly when a lightning strike turned the dry pine and eucalyptus woods around Pedrógão Grande into an inferno. The N236 – the “Road of Death”, as it’s being called – winds through densely wooded slopes and gorges in central Portugal, said Javier Martín in El País (Madrid). When the blaze took hold, anxious residents took to their cars to make their escape. But the fire had already reached the road, and as vehicles rounded corners, concealed tongues of flame engulfed them. Survivors said they only escaped by fleeing their cars and running through the smoking trees. It was a scene of total devastation, charred cars glued to the asphalt with entire families incinerated inside.

But will anything be done to stop these tragedies? Studies have been churned out year after year, said Tavares, but their advice is never followed. The vast sums needed could only be raised by raiding welfare budgets – which voters wouldn’t stand for. So we’ll go on making donations to appease our consciences, and politicians will go on publishing useless decrees. Don’t listen to the cynics, said Paula Ferreira in Jornal de Notícias (Porto). Plenty can be done. Firefighters must be given more resources, and focus on prevention – clearing the dry brush in winter that causes fires in the summer. Woodlands must be properly managed: half are on private land that has effectively been abandoned. Above all, the government must curb the planting of eucalyptus: its sap is flammable and the trees spew burning bark when they catch fire.

To do that, politicians must be bold enough to take on the powerful paper industry, said Paul Ames on Politico (Brussels). Eucalyptus, native to Australia, was introduced to Europe as an ornamental plant, but in Portugal, from the mid20th century, it became an established raw material for paper, and now accounts for 5% of all exports and the employment of 3,000 people. Displacing native oaks, chestnuts and laurels, it is Portugal’s most common tree, covering a quarter of total forest land. Conservationists are calling for eucalyptus plantations to be mixed with less fire-prone native species to act as a firebreak. The paper industry says reducing eucalyptus cultivation would destroy jobs and lead to more woodlands being abandoned, so increasing the risk of fires. But if more tragedies are to be avoided, that’s the kind of resistance that must be overcome.