Some weird facts and numbers about the Portugal fires, apart from the oil exploration, wood business, hundreds of arsons, incendiary devices dropped from the air and the below mentioned geoengineering
From Monchique fire:
- - 27000Ha burned
- - 100km2 or bigger perimeter
- - Equivalent to all fires in Portugal this year up to July
- - 40 to 50 injuries from this fire
- - At least 10M€ in losses.
- - 1000 firefighters
- - 500 vehicles
Last year there were 440000Ha burned in Portugal.
https://www.publico.pt/2018/08/09/sociedade/noticia/fogo-que-deflagrou-em-monchique-globalmente-estabilizado-1840645
As i start this article another fire is extinguished in Sertã, Castelo Branco.
https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/pais/1064558/fogo-na-serta-esta-dominado-sem-perigo-para-populacoes
(This article is meant as a record and a compilation of news regarding Portugal fires).
The fire season as started in Portugal and this year a huge fire that lasted for 7 days was threatening Monchique village and a very large area around it.
Last year Pedrogão Grande fire was the one of the biggest in the last years which made more than 60 deaths and this year was Monchique, in Algarve, Portugal which luckily hasn't caused any deaths.
Here is an article i shared last year relating geoengineering with the fires, and it seems that just like last year on Pedrogão Grande there was a "dry" storm a few kilometres away.
https://steemit.com/news/@zedikaredirect/portugal-fires-june-2017-and-geoengineering-are-obviously-related
Aparentely there was also a storm in this fire at the same time in Albufeira, actually an hail storm.
https://steemit.com/news/@climate.looker/chuva-de-granizo-em-albufeira-leva-pessoas-a-fugir-da-praia-0b9dcfe5709b8est
Monchique, Portugal 2018
Photo: Lusa - Filipe Farinha
The fire that has been raging since last Friday and spread to neighbouring counties left the sky of the Western Algarve covered with a blanket of ash and smoke in shades of brown for several days. (Photo: ESA/NASA-A.Gerst)
Drone footage of burned land in Monchique:
https://www.facebook.com/MarceloMartins1996/videos/vb.1608720733/10214081565825695/?type=3&theater
Police are physically abusive forcing population and tourists off the land, this is apart and unsual from the resistance of residents in this situations, most of these people are already expecting something like this and are very often sucessfull in saving their houses and animals.
In the video below a local politian complains about the overreaction and how the police handled the situation.
Several stories of people being told by police to go in areas where it would be dangerous and a whole village actually refused the police presence with reports of agressions from the police and several people handcuffed when refusing to comply.
https://observador.pt/2018/08/11/historias-de-excessos-da-gnr-repetem-se-em-monchique/
Police use Cannabis as an excuse to raid a resident, rough on the approach as he makes a video of the police for protection, this was suspicious because the whole area was burning and the police was almost like that wasn't the most important part of their day.
https://www.msn.com/pt-pt/video/noticias/gnr-procura-can%c3%a1bis-em-quinta-de-alem%c3%a3o-afetada-pelo-fogo-em-monchique/vi-BBLLwPc?
In these situations older people and locals, usually are a great help to the firefighters which come from all of the country, and are also able to water all the terrain and at least some individually defend their homes.
While some people where removed by force with several reports of handcuffed people, a few amount of people which had some water equipment were allowed to stay defending their homes in less risky areas but the rule was forcabily remove any people "in order to save lives at any cost".
The corporations of firefighters shown here in chopper view, where stopped about 5 hours which has been one of the complaints from the population and some firefighters themselves, there is very low action for the increased amount of man power in the ground, little knowledge of the terrain and specially noted this and last year, bad or no decisions on the top commands.
In yet another insolit from the portuguese Civil Protection a chopper was removed when confronted with this the organization responded that they didn't know about any chopper removed from the scene, it took a whole day until it was officially admitted that a chopper had been removed from the area by ground means.
https://sol.sapo.pt/artigo/622139/o-estranho-caso-do-heli-avariado-
Follow up news:
In this fire some of the planes where refilling in the ocean so part of the planes were dropping salt water in the fire. Appart from evaporating faster it seems that salt water may harm soil especially if the soil already has salts.
In each liter of water there are 35 grams of salt, in 12000 liters there are 420 kg of salt.
So we can say than in a few drops tons of salt are being going to the ground.
https://www.publico.pt/2018/08/08/ciencia/noticia/usar-agua-salgada-no-combate-aos-incendios-e-prejudicial-1840528
Experts say that "use of force is legit in order to save lives".
This was the premise of the government reaction, which actually took the police to have a rough handling of this situation and i would say that the Civil Protection was actually more focused in the removal of people than in stopping the fire. Fortunately no lives where lost.