The civil protection agency announced that the fire had restarted in the Serra da Estrela Park, which was declared under control last week in central Portugal, prompting the mobilization of more than 1,000 firefighters on Tuesday morning.
After being declared under control from Friday evening into Saturday, the fire re-emerged “strongly” on Monday afternoon, driven by “strong winds,” André Fernández, head of Portugal’s Civil Protection Agency, told reporters Monday night. He explained that several villages were evacuated as a precaution.
According to the latest preliminary data released by the Portuguese authorities, the fire in Serra da Estrela, the biggest one in Portugal this summer, has covered 15,000 hectares. This fire, which broke out on August 6 near Covilha (center), destroyed the unique forests of this UNESCO-listed World Natural Reserve, in the middle of the Serra da Estrela mountain range, about 2,000 meters high. As the Civil Protection Command has been criticized for its mismanagement of operations, Interior Minister José Luis Carneiro promised on Monday to start assessing the “structural causes” and “management methods” of the fires after the Serra da Estrela fire is extinguished.
In Portugal, which has faced exceptional drought this year, July was the hottest in nearly a century. According to the latest report from the Institute for Conservation of Nature and Forests, about 80,000 hectares have burned since the beginning of the year, the largest area since the 2017 fires that killed 100 people.
