Latest news and stories about wildfires in Portugal for expats and residents.
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The experts will evaluate what went wrong during last year's forest fires. The President of the Republic had already expressed his displeasure with the delays in forming this commission, which was proposed by the PS last September.
Following the President of the Republic's warning during a visit to a location affected by the 2025 fires, representatives of polytechnics and rectors accelerated the nomination of members, whose names are now in Parliament.
Aguiar-Branco's office guarantees that representatives of the rectors and polytechnics were notified by registered letter on February 19th, but they reportedly failed to collect the correspondence.
The government has not yet paid the entirety of the extraordinary expenses incurred during the fight against the 2025 rural wildfires.
A visit to the village of Mourísia, in the country's interior, served as the stage for the new President to demand support that has yet to be implemented and to denounce the technical commission on wildfires, which is still not operational.
The President visits a village in the Arganil municipality, in the Serra do Açor, where promised support for last year's wildfires has yet to arrive.
António José Seguro returned to Mourísia, Arganil, in his first official act as President of the Republic to address the lack of promised support following last summer's wildfires. Seguro emphasised the need for political accountability, stating that he will be a demanding President regarding both results and decision-making processes, while highlighting the delay in forming an independent technical commission for fire prevention.
The countries will meet on Friday at the 36th Iberian summit following months marked by major wildfires and storms.
What has been done since the summer, when around 270,000 hectares of our country were burnt, and what is being done to prevent this massive deforestation? Column by Ana Lázaro
Juliana and her husband take turns sleeping and keep the window open even when it rains so they do not miss an evacuation order. Tiago is worried about his grandparents, who will have to sleep in a motorhome. António is in a 'difficult dilemma': 'Here we have the floods; we flee to the hills and the fires and storms come, and there we are not safe either.'
Having had no contact with his native village in Ourém for five days, the Patriarch of Lisbon today called for support for the municipalities hit by Storm Kristin and praised the resilience of his fellow townspeople, who have also been repeatedly affected by wildfires.
Explosive cyclogenesis. Fire tornadoes. Bomb cyclones. Mega-wildfires. Cities destroyed. Floods. People killed. The climate crisis is a war against humanity — a war with no ceasefire. Over the past few months in Portugal we have seen a succession of hellish fires and extratropical cyclones that are devastating several regions of the country, particularly the central region. It really is a war, because it was deliberately provoked and those who launched these ‘bombs’ plan to continue launching them.
The town of Pedrógão Grande, still recovering from recent wildfires, is now confronting another tragedy that deepens the community's hardship.
João Camargo, a climate-change researcher, explains how the series of depressions that struck Portugal within a week and the intense summer wildfires are early signs that the climate is changing: “What we can expect are unexpected things that manifest both as extremely cold winters and scorching summers.”
The mayor says there is 'a trail of destruction throughout the territory'.
Climatologist Carlos da Câmara calls for a rethink of prevention and land-management strategies. He also warns about the influence of wildfires on soil permeability.
The technical committee on the fires that burned more than 217,000 hectares in August 2025 will be made up of 12 individuals to be appointed by Parliament, university rectors, polytechnic institutions and municipalities.
The jeep on the way to the boarding point on the Paiva River, in the municipality of Arouca, shows a landscape devastated by the wildfires. Henrique Gouveia e Melo, the sailor who commanded the Navy, today put on a wetsuit, lifejacket and helmet to go rafting in the river rapids, aiming to highlight the importance of “outdoor sports and nature tourism in an area that burned heavily last summer and to show the care needed to protect this heritage.” At 65, the retired admiral says he has nothing to prove when it comes to demonstrating health, vitality and energy, because almost all candidates try in some way to show their physical fitness. “I have nothing to prove. I left the Armed Forces less than a year ago. On my last mission, ask the people in the Navy what I did…” He says he is prepared. He has never done rafting. “What I did were things more violent than rafting” — on submarines and on ships. Gouveia e Melo justifies this campaign mise-en-scène by pointing to the country’s abandoned areas: “Not only are we seeing the interior become depopulated, but sometimes we don’t take care to bring economic activity to the interior, and that economy can often be provided by outdoor sports and nature tourism. It’s beautiful, we look around and what we see is a landscape badly burned, very destroyed.” “By coincidence, the Government is now preparing a decree-law on rivers and the protection of rivers. An advanced society understands the importance of nature, the impact humans have, and the care we must take to preserve it,” he states.
André Pestana stressed that, as the President of the Republic is the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, he should have the courage to say that they need to be defending the population in summer, when wildfires occur.
Presidential candidate André Pestana said today that the Army should be mobilised to fight the forest fires that affect Portugal every year, and that woodlands should be cleared in winter to end “the powerful business of fire”.
The parliamentary committee is following the line of the ongoing criminal investigation in 'Operation Control Tower'. The list of figures the PS wants to hear includes a relative of Minister Leitão Amaro and a businessman who financed the Chega party.
More than twice the area that would have been 'expected' burned, given the weather conditions, but roughly half of the area recorded in the tragic year of 2017. In a New Year’s message, the Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management (AGIF) called for measures to avoid setbacks in the year ahead.
On National Road 236, João Cotrim de Figueiredo walks alongside the president of the Pedrógão Grande Fire Victims' Association. He listens, through Dina Duarte, to the concerns of people who have not forgotten June 2017.
On the N236, João Cotrim de Figueiredo walks alongside the president of the Association of Victims of the Pedrógão Grande Fire. Through Dina Duarte he hears the concerns of people who have not forgotten June 2017.