“The estimated burned area is 7,000 hectares, but the potential of this fire points to more than 20,000 hectares. The focus, at this moment, is not to let there be new reactivations with a period longer than 15 minutes”, said the second Regional Commander of Emergency and Civil Protection of the Alentejo, José Guilherme, in a briefing on the situation of the fire.

“Unfortunately we have registered 11 minor injuries so far”, he added.

The fire broke out on Friday afternoon, in the locality of Carrascal, Santo André das Tojeiras, municipality of Castelo Branco and progressed to the neighboring municipality of Proença-a-Nova.

José Guilherme said that more than a thousand operatives will remain on the ground who “are managing to stabilise the perimeter of the ground. The four hot spots are between Pedra Altar and Foz do Cobrão, west of Gaviãozinho, east of Carregais and between Catraia Cimeira and Aldeia Cimeira”, all in the municipality of Proença-a-Nova.

“We are talking about a very large area [60 kilometers of perimeter], with dispersed populations. There was no need [overnight] for evacuations. Many vacant dwellings and annexes were damaged, but fortunately there are no damaged first or second dwellings”, he underlined.