MONCHIQUE (Portugal): Wildfires which have blazed along a smoldering stretch of Portugal’s Algarve for a week died down today, but fears remained that winds could reignite the flames.
“It’s calmer and we do not have active flames any more, and that gives us some peace of mind,” said Rui Andre, the mayor of Monchique near where the fire broke out last Friday. However, he warned against “giving up” in case the fire is once again stoked up by the flames.
Hundreds of firefighters have been battling to control the blaze that has menaced the popular tourist region in southern Portugal for a week as sweltering temperatures and strong winds encouraged the ferocious fires.
Dozens of people were injured and a blackened trail of seared forest, charred homes and incinerated cars was left in the wake of the wildfires.
Aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop on to the creeping blaze earlier Thursday, as firefighters continued to douse the flames, which have consumed some 23,000 hectares (52,000 acres) of forest in the region — one of Europe’s top tourism destinations.
National civil protection agency spokeswoman Patricia Gaspar earlier warned of the “risk of reactivation” from the wind “along a perimeter that now exceeds 100 kilometres”.
The fires have left 36 people injured, one seriously, with 19 of those hurt firefighters, according to Gaspar.
On Thursday more than a thousand firefighters and soldiers were tackling the blazes in the affected zone, which is planted with pines and highly-flammable eucalyptus trees and scored by difficult to reach valleys and ravines.
Fire crews and police conducted an urgent evacuation overnight of homes around the historic town of Silves.
A slight respite Thursday afternoon enabled local people to leave the schools, gymnasiums and reception centres where they had taken refuge and venture back to their homes.
Dark clouds of smoke and soot from the wildfires had billowed above popular holiday beaches in the region earlier Thursday, but gusts of wind cleared the skies later in the day.