Madeira fire ‘completely contained’

The fire that broke out on the island of Madeira on the 14th has been “completely extinguished” and the teams from the mainland and the Azores that helped fight the blaze will leave the region, the Madeiran Civil Service announced this Monday.

Civil Protection President António Nunes told Luce at 10am that the fire would be “completely under control” but that “at this point I would not want to use a fire extinguisher because the fire was very intense and could still have some hot spots that could cause a re-ignition that would probably be relatively easy to put out.” However, Civil Protection has now indicated that there are “no fires or hot spots.”

According to the head of Madeira’s civil protection, the fire is “completely under control”, but since there are “some hot spots”, what happened on Sunday could happen again, with a new fire that “was easy to put out, especially because it was in an area where everything around had burned”.

Also, according to António Nunes, at this stage the rural fire brigades (ECIR) are on the scene and, in addition to their usual activities, “will provide additional assistance to these burning areas.”

These are “resources that were already there before the fire started and will continue to be there until November 30” and which “are part of the rural fire crews that are on the ground as usual, as they are every year,” he explained.

As for the teams that arrived from the mainland and the Azores to help put out the fire, the person in charge said they would return to their places from this Monday.

The mainland will return to air force flights scheduled for the end of the day this Monday and Tuesday, while elements from the Azores will depart on a civilian flight, he said.

“We are very grateful for their provision, for the help they have given us. At the moment, they are ready to return to their homes,” he added.

According to the European Forest Fire Information System, the area of ​​burnt areas exceeds 5,045 hectares.

A rural fire on the island of Madeira broke out on August 14 in the mountains of the municipality of Ribeira Brava, gradually spreading to the municipalities of Câmara de Lobos, Ponta do Sol and Santana.

Since the fire began, authorities have ordered nearly 200 people to leave their homes as a precaution and have set up community shelters, but many residents have returned home.

Firefighting efforts were hampered by wind and high temperatures, but there were no reports of injuries or destruction of homes or important public infrastructure, according to the regional government, although some small-scale agricultural production and forested areas were damaged.

The Judicial Police are investigating the cause of the fire, but the President of the Executive Power of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, said it was arson.