The Safe Village programme covers 2,281 clusters, up by “more than 30 clusters” by the middle of this year, according to the Home Office, but the Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management (AGIF) believes it can improve.
The website of the Safe Village, Safe People program of the Ministry of the Interior and the National Emergency Management and Civil Defense Authority, registered on Friday based on information from local authorities, has a total of 2,281 population clusters, 2,132 clusters with local security personnel, 969 evacuation plans, 528 drills, 1,468 shelters and 1,478 shelters.
As the office of Interior Minister Margarida Blasco told Luce, “in 2024, there has been a net increase of more than 30 clusters to date.”
These figures are now added to the “net balance of 12 more clusters” recorded last year, resulting from the “addition of 125 new clusters and the subtraction of 113 previously identified clusters” due to several factors.
According to the trusteeship, “the level of commitment is dynamic” and new additions regularly appear in the monthly report compiled by the municipalities, as well as “situations in which, due to the internal characteristics of the cluster,” the authority has temporarily ceased to be taken into account in the program.
“These situations are usually associated with the impossibility of using shelters/refuges, the unavailability of local security forces, or the need to adapt a previously drawn up evacuation plan,” the ministry explained.
AGIF, in its 2023 Integrated Rural Fire Management System report to Parliament, noted that the increase of 12 clusters (plus 0.5%) in the Safe Village programme, bringing the total number of clusters to 2,242, was “90% below the annual target” set by the Civil Protection Service in more than 111 clusters.
According to the agency headed by Thiago Oliveira, these figures “remain significantly below the ambitions set” in the National Action Plan (PNA) – 7,000 villages in 2030 – and “compared to the development from 2021 to 2022 (additional figure 160) and to the trend observed since 2018”, 2023 has become the year of “the smallest growth since the beginning of the program”.
In this sense, AGIF advocates for “resuming the pace of implementation of the Safe Village, Safe People programme” and that “there is no information on whether the participating clusters are ‘rural clusters’ or not.” Only general data on accession are provided, and this aspect “should be clarified when considering the ONP.”
Regarding the management of the vegetation around the building, support for 508 “village condominiums” (the designation of the parallel program) was approved in 2023 to change the use of land to agricultural or agroforestry purposes for a total of 20 million euros. At present, “information on the effectively managed area needs to be obtained and coordination with the Safe Village, Safe People program needs to be strengthened,” the report notes.
The number of “village condominiums” approved so far has risen to 592, but the total investment value has not yet been determined, according to a source at the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion.
The Aldeia Segura programme, created in 2018, aims to create “protection zones for clusters and strategic infrastructures, identify critical points and refuge sites”, while Pessoas Seguras aims to “raise awareness of risk prevention, self-defence measures and carry out exercises and evacuation plans in conjunction with local authorities”.
According to the programme’s website, the districts of Guarda (503), Bragança (257), Viseu (237), Santarém (216) and Vila Real (178) have the most clusters, while Setúbal (six) and Porto (eight) have the fewest. Beja (nine), Évora (12) and Lisbon (28) have the fewest.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, the overall balance of the programmes is “clearly positive”, as evidenced by “feedback” from local partners (municipalities and parishes), thanks to the benefits in terms of identifying places of refuge or asylum, raising awareness among the population about the dangers and training in self-protection measures.
“There is also a perception that the programmes have brought in best practices regarding the precautions to be taken when using fire and in relation to fuel management in the vicinity of populated areas,” he said.
The ministry also noted that the 7,000 cluster target set out in the National Rural Fire Management Plan was set back in 2020 based on “the information available at the time” about clusters “in the highest risk areas at that time” and that the NRP “is subject to periodic reviews, so this target may be reassessed at this headquarters, depending on the experience gained in the meantime.”
ORS//ROC
Lusa/The End
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.