Portuguese authorities: many forest and meadow fires are the work of arsonists

Fires have been raging in Portugal since the weekend. Territorial Cohesion Minister Manuel Castro Almeida said that authorities have received numerous reports from municipalities about the circumstances of the fires, which indicate human involvement in setting the fires. “Many local government officials who witnessed the fire have told us that they saw the fire scattered in several places, every 500 meters,” Castro Almeida said, pointing to the criminal nature of such actions. Portuguese media reported on Thursday that almost 80 people suspected of setting the fires have been arrested across the country since Sunday.

On Thursday morning, police arrested a man who confessed to starting a fire in the municipality of Albergaria-a-Velha, one of the largest to break out in Portugal this year.

– The arsonist is a 67-year-old pyromaniac with no previous convictions, who is a retired farm worker. He has at least three fires under his belt – CNN Portugal reported, citing police sources.

Since Sunday, more than 110,000 hectares of forests and meadows have burned in Portugal, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro's government reported on Wednesday evening, based on data from the EU's Copernicus Earth observation program. The disaster killed seven people and injured more than 150.

Portuguese firefighters were battling more than a hundred fires on Wednesday evening, mostly in the central and northern parts of the country. The most dangerous are in the districts of Porto, Viseu, Coimbra and Aveiro.

Montenegro's prime minister declared that his cabinet would do everything to improve aid for fire victims, as well as to combat arsonists. He announced severe punishments for those who set fires. “We will not forgive those who did not show mercy to others,” Montenegro said, also calling on citizens to be vigilant in connection with the large group of arsonists in Portugal. Portuguese medical services reported in the evening that between Tuesday and Wednesday there were almost several hundred cases of injuries to firefighters or civilians in connection with the raging element.

One of the latest casualties in the firefighting operation is a 36-year-old firefighter who was hit with a pitchfork in the northern commune of Resende on Wednesday. He was taken to hospital in the city of Lamego with serious injuries. According to local police, the tragic incident occurred during a fire in a nearby forest. The firefighter fell victim to an aggressive property owner who tried to persuade him to participate in the evacuation. On the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the largest fires raged in the districts of Aveiro, Viseu, Coimbra, Porto and Vila Real, in central and northern Portugal. 248 soldiers from Spain, part of a special unit for emergencies, joined the fight against the fire. They supported over 5,000 Portuguese firefighters. Spain also donated 80 fire trucks and two firefighting planes to Portugal. France, Italy and Morocco also sent planes to extinguish the fires.