The fire storm’s intensity melted skin off hands and feet, liquifed glass windows and reduced standing signs to puddles of metal. The ferocious wind whipped heat up from the burning forests, thrusting fames forward before crashing them down on the small towns dotted across Portugal’s central region, suffocating the area in thick black smoke. On the afternoon of Saturday 17 June 2017, a complex of at least five wildfires ignited, spread and merged across 11 small towns surrounding the municipality of Pedrógão Grande in Central Portugal creating an unstoppable and catastrophic fire event. Sixty-four people died and 250 were injured. Over five days more than 46,000 hectares of land were destroyed. The fire struck territory carpeted by highly flammable, abandoned pine and eucalyptus plantations at a time of prolonged drought and enduring heat waves. The major triggers were found to be contact between vegetation and a 25 kV electrical line as well as lightning strikes. Volunteer firefighter Rui Rosinha, 46, was called in as reinforcement. He was driving to one of the emerging spot fires when his team’s truck collided with a car on the N-236 highway near Pobrais, southeast of Coimbra. The crash stranded them on the side of the road and trapped the three unconscious passengers of the car. As the firefighters struggled unsuccessfully to free the passengers from the wreckage, the wind, radiation and heat from the approaching fire became unbearable. They were forced to save themselves and leave the passengers behind. Huddled together on a small island junction of raised concrete in the middle of the highway, Rui and his four colleagues then endured an hour of exposure to fames, heat, cyclonic winds and the thrashing of airborne debris. “We experienced temperatures that seemed impossible. The radiation came in waves. I felt it as if it were extreme waves of heat, I remember not just once, but many times the impact and pain, as it hit my body.” Though severely burnt the group were able to successfully shelter three adults and a child on the same junction. When help finally arrived Rui and the others were driven to medical centres before being airlifted to hospital and that’s the last thing he remembers. The fire moved at unbelievable ferocity, with more than 4400 ha burnt in a single hour, violently accelerated by intense wind gusts, emitting enough energy to propel itself and exceed the capacity of extinction within four hours of igniting. The severe speed of the fire, which by nightfall was advancing at 15 km/hr, outpaced evacuation orders and knocked out communication networks, trapping hundreds and killing dozens in their cars as they fed on the N-236 highway. It was the worst mega fre in Portugal’s history. As a result of the disaster, family members of those who died and others who were seriously injured were compensated from a 2.5 million euro support fund. A complete reform of land management legislation was also prompted including the introduction of a new 10-meter clearing rule between roads and vegetation, the banning of new eucalyptus plantings and a shift away from purely reactive firefighting to prevention investment. The reach of the Pedrógão Grande mega fire has left physical, psychological and generational scars, altering the social fabric of the small communities forever.
