Portugal launches new fire prevention campaign as wildfires continue to rage

Firefighters on the Portuguese island of Madeira continue to battle the country's worst wildfire since 2017.

Transcript

00:00There has not been a fire on this scale in Portugal since 2017, when the country recorded

00:07its deadliest blazes.

00:10Since then, the number of forest fires has gone down by more than half, mainly thanks

00:14to a prevention awareness campaign.

00:16We started working after 2017, so the Portuguese society was very traumatized by the fires.

00:25In the first year of the campaign, in 2018, we had a clearer message.

00:32Portugal calls for itself, because it was necessary to call all Portuguese to reduce

00:36the number of fires.

00:38Now the Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management has launched a new campaign that will run

00:43until 2026 to further reduce these numbers.

00:47This year, 2024, we have 3,500 fires, which is a relatively relevant record, because people

00:55also consolidated this knowledge, and in the rural space there was also a pleasant summer,

01:01we were not so safe, and therefore all fires do not generate fires, so there are not so many

01:06fires.

01:07However, the strategy will pass, and is passing, through personalized contacts, door to door,

01:12through the National Guard, for example, it is going through a greater involvement now

01:18with the Ministry of Education, with campaigns in schools, between 5 and 12 years old, which

01:24is what the RAPOSA project calls, which will mobilize about half a million students in the next 5 years.

01:29Last year, fires were on a lower scale across Europe, devastating about 8,500 square kilometers.

01:36But they disrupted water supplies, damaged infrastructure and agricultural land, and

01:41impacted tourism and local economies.

01:44Europe needs a mechanism of interoperability so that the forces of neighboring countries

01:51can operate in the same way.

01:52It is not enough to send aircraft from one country to another, it is necessary that when

01:55the aircraft arrive, they are coordinated with the forces on the ground, and they have to

01:59work with common mechanisms.

02:01Canada and the United States do this very well, and Europe can be inspired by this model.

02:05And there is also a dimension of politics, of political articulation, which the strategy

02:09until 2030 seeks, namely to prepare, to use common agricultural policy, which allows

02:16farmers to better manage their forests, and to bring more attention to common agricultural

02:23policy for abandoned lands, for agricultural practices that do not generate fire, and allow

02:29always a treated forestation.

02:31To date, last year's fire in Greece's Evros region remains the largest ever recorded in

02:36the European Union.