Fires turn deadly in second worst year since 2017 // Probe into roadside birth after woman refused ambulance // New AIMA requirement, immigrant making $9000 a month rejected
Portuguese news in English on Tuesday, August 19, 2025.
Fires turn deadly in second worst year since 2017
One firefighter has died and another four are recovering from their injuries after a fire truck rolled on its way to battle a blaze near Fundão in the Castelo Branco district, Expresso reports. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa mourned the “tragic death” while Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said he heard the news with “deep sadness”. The League of Firefighters said the 44-year-old who died on Sunday was the 257th to die in service since 1980, Público reports. It was the second death of the fire season, after a former parish council chair died fighting a fire in Guarda on Friday.
Fire alert extended for fourth time
The fire alert issued on August 2 has been extended for a fourth time and will now last until 11.59pm this Tuesday night, Público reports. Home Affairs Minister Maria Lúcia Amaral said two Canadair firefighting planes lent to Portugal by Morocco would remain in the country until Wednesday amid “very unfavourable conditions”. Portugal activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism on Friday and called for four of the planes to be sent due to problems with three planes based here. Speaking on Sunday, Amaral said the extension was partly due to worsening winds and smoke, which was complicating matters for firefighting aircraft in many areas. Meteorologist Jorge Ponte said a drop in temperature and humidity from this Monday created a “window of opportunity” to attack and extinguish the fires, Público reports.
Check the restrictions the alert imposes in Portugal Weekly from earlier this month.
Tens of thousands of hectares burnt in two days
The fires had burnt 139,000 hectares by Sunday, 17 times more than the area burnt in the same period last year, Público reports. The figure — half of which occurred in just two days — is the second worst since 2017, when more than 100 people were killed in devastating fires. Amid last week’s heatwave, which aggravated the fires, at least three locations — Viseu with 27.2°C, Guarda with 26°C and Lamas de Mouro with 19°C — sweated through their hottest nights on record, Expresso reports.
In Mêda, one of the 11 councils badly hit by the large fires in Trancoso and Sátão that joined in recent days, a vineyard owner and the council have complained of a lack resources to fight the fire and called for a state of calamity to be declared, Público reports. Fourth-generation wine producer Rui Martins was indignant, asking how a fire could be allowed to burn for 15 days and spread out of control in a country so small with a known fire threat every year. “Our biggest enemy is internal, it’s the fires and, even still, we let this happen. There’s no strategy at all,” he said, after his vines were destroyed. The national action plan to reduce the destructiveness of wildfires set a goal to clean up 1 million hectares of forestry from 2020 to 2024, Público reports.
Government criticised for handling of fires
Prime Minister Luís Montenegro and several members of his government are facing criticism for showing up to his Social Democratic Party’s (PSD) traditional summer festival in the Algarve while the fires rage in the country’s north, Público reports. Former leaders of right-wing parties Liberal Initiative (IL) and CDS, which makes up the other part of the governing Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition with PSD, added their voices to their criticism from the left. Former CDS leader Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos said the government shot itself in the foot. “Never has the contrast between the festivalgoers in Quarteira and the country’s rural residents, from the interior, been so glaring and clamorous,” he said. Ex-IL boss Rui Rocha compared Montenegro’s announcement that Formula 1 would return to the Algarve in 2027 to comments by then-prime minister António Costa describing the hosting of the 2020 Champions League final in Lisbon as “compensation” for health professionals. Montenegro cancelled his summer holidays on Friday, after five days of leave that was meant to last until August 22, as a result of the fires, Lusa reports.
José Luís Carneiro, leader of the largest left-wing party, called on Montenegro to quickly summon the National Council for Civil Protection to take political control of the situation, Expresso reports. The Socialist (PS) leader called for the alert level to be raised and said there had been “serious failures of coordination”, arguing the prime minister could not disappear in such a situation. Defending criticisms of the prime minister’s absence from public life amid the fires, Home Affairs Minister Maria Lúcia Amaral said decision-makers need “peace and tranquility” to do their best, Público reports. Far-right Chega leader André Ventura called for Amaral to be sacked, saying the prime minister and minister should be helping on the side of those fighting the fires, Expresso reports. Speaking before the controversy over the celebration in the Algarve, Marcelo described the government’s management of the fires as “spectacular”, Público reports.
Animals saved in fire ‘miracle’
An animal rescue group has labelled the survival of a dog and her litter in Oliveira do Hospital, near Coimbra, a “miracle”. Intervenção e Resgate Animal said while flames destroyed the home of a man named Pedro, leaving him in tears, his animals survived because they weren’t tied up. IRA said the mother grabbed her puppies and sheltered them in a mine access. Everything around them and the hole was burned but they survived. At least four homes were destroyed in the Oliveira do Hospital council, Público reports.
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