A report to be released tomorrow states that the three fires in the districts of Coimbra, Viseu and Guarda last October, had become uncontrollable in less time than the fire in Pedrógão Grande in June, where 67 people died.This is one of the conclusions of the report of the Independent Technical Commission, appointed by parliament, which will be delivered to Government on Tuesday.
The worst period was during the night of October 15 to 16 – some 49 victims died during these hours.
The experts describe the situation in October as "unique" and said that it was impossible to combat such a fire, but that the strategy should have been to protect people, which was difficult because houses were scattered across a wide area.
Among the flaws listed are; the fact that the Civil Protection Authority ignored warnings about fire risk, failed to alert the population and failed to evacuate villages in time; the Government did not extend the 'Charlie' phase which led to a lack of fire-fighting forces on the ground; communication system 'SIRESP' is "obsolete and outdated" which instead of helping, simply made operations more difficult; local councils and property owners had failed to comply with the laws relating to forest protection and land clearing, respectively.
Among the recommendations are to appoint managers to the Civil Protection authority that actually know what they are doing, rather than continuing the current idiocy of making political appointments, to increase the training and skill levels of volunteer Bomberios who were unable to handle the June and October fires, and to insist the forest clearance laws are followed, rather than ignored year after year.
