Tuesday, 3^rd August was a typically hot day in this region of central Portugal, with little, if anything resembling a cooling breeze. We were enjoying lunch on our terrace with a couple of friends when we first noticed the fire as a small plume of smoke in the distance, towards Dornes. A couple of Bombeiras helicopters were soon joined by two light aircraft which were making darting runs into the central mass of smoke. This piqued our interest and as an ex-military photographer I wanted to get closer to the action, fortunately for me so did our lunch guests.

After driving just a couple of miles and with the smoke plume getting progressively larger we came across a small cluster of houses in the village of Barrada. A small group of people were trying to help a distressed elderly resident whose land had just started to burn. As people were frantically searching for something to fight the fire with, the cavalry, in the form of a Bombeiras helicopter arrived and, with remarkable precision considering the ever thickening black smoke, the pilot doused the fire. This was just one of many small battles against the fire which, now being fanned by a strong afternoon breeze was advancing at an alarming rate towards Rio Fundeiro and beyond. We came across a local farmer who, sadly, could only watch as his land was hungrily engulfed by the flames. The Bombeiras arrived on the scene but despite their best efforts the fire continued its relentless advance and the fire-fighters were pushed back to the next forest fire break. We quickly returned to our car and headed back to Rio Fundeiro and safety! As we drove away the scene in the rear view mirror was reminiscent of a Hollywood disaster movie, little did we know it was going to get a lot worse.

A GNR officer, stationed at the top of our street, stopped the car but let us continue when we explained we were residents. He did though warn us that the fire would be with us soon a fact calmly confirmed by our neighbour who stated that the village would burn before nightfall. Our lunch guests took this as their queue to “exit stage left” and after quick goodbyes they drove up the hill only to arrive back five minutes later having just attempted to ”drive through hell”

It was now clear that we were in for a stormy ride and we began preparations for the imminent arrival of the fire. Firstly we drove the cars away and parked them at the water’s edge, I didn’t relish having two tanks of Gasoline sat outside our front door. Debbie and Ray, our unfortunate lunch guests then escorted our daughter Natalie along with our two dogs down to the river ,where, in scenes reminiscent of Dunkirk, a flotilla of small boats, pleasure craft and even jet-ski’s were evacuating grateful residents over to the water-sports centre at Trizio. I made a quick mental calculation that although the conditions were going to get difficult; we should be able to remain safe as the fire would sweep down the opposite side of the street. The few of us who remained behind set to work, removing those flammable objects that could be moved and turning the garden hoses on anything that remained. Houses were shut down, windows and shutters closed, electricity was turned off and garden hoses were run out in readiness but there was no sense of panic in the neighbours that we spoke to, just an air of inevitability. This calmness remained even when the fire roared over the hill, and whipped up by the gusting wind, sped down towards us. Roofs and trees were drenched; the scrub and grass at the side of the road was effectively flooded and as the flames approached I put on a flimsy face mask and, in preparation for the heat from the firestorm, I turned the hose on myself. At this point the fire split, with the wind whipping up embers across the road and onto the steeply banked forest behind the houses, but we had prepared for this eventuality and hoses and buckets were emptied over the backs of the houses and the gardens. The fire eventually reached us at about 1900 and the heat was so intense that some of the tiles on our neighbour’s house started to smoulder and crack and fell through into a bedroom below, although thankfully they were quickly extinguished. Propelled by strong winds the fire at the front of the houses swiftly passed through but it lingered in the sheltered area at the back so all efforts were concentrated there. Large piles of logs and old roofing timbers were impossible to extinguish with garden hoses, task that increased in difficulty when mains water was lost and all the wells were pumped dry, we persevered by shovelling dirt onto the fires, until with nothing left to burn, they died down. As quickly as it had arrived the fire passed through and as the evacuees returned the damping down started. We kept vigil throughout the night hoping to prevent any further out breaks, this proved worthwhile as we needed to contact the Bombeiras twice to tackle two large re-ignitions, they arrived within minutes and quickly extinguished the blazes. Even now, two days later, there are still smouldering fires that are re-ignited by the wind and the Bombeiras are still out ensuring that they don’t spread.

During the fire and in the few days following it we have witnessed at close hand the professionalism and dedication of the largely voluntary force that is the Bombeiras. It is amazing that fire-fighters from stations as far afield as Santerem, Obidos and even Sintra were involved in fighting this fire, and that they could seamlessly join together to become an effective fire-fighting force, it is even more remarkable when you consider their average retained wage is 1.70 hour! Approximately 240 fire-fighters utilising over 50 vehicles and 5 aircraft were involved and it was largely due to their efforts that there were no fatalities. Yesterday my wife and I passed a fire tender parked up at the side of the road, we were both eager to thank the crew for their efforts but as we got closer we could see they were laid on the grass verge in an exhaustion induced slumber, we didn’t have the heart to wake them. So we now take this opportunity to personally thank the Portuguese Fire Service for all they have done and will, hopefully, continue to do.

Andy White

Rio Fundeiro