He said at least 30 people died inside their cars as they tried to flee between the towns of Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera. Gomes gave a grim description of the deaths to RTP. A young man shared a bottle of water with a distraught woman as she stumbled down the road. State broadcaster RTP showed terrifying images of several people on a road trying to escape the intense smoke that had reduced visibility to a few meters (yards). “I am completely stunned by the number of deaths.” “This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we cannot remember a tragedy of these proportions,” said Valdemar Alves, the mayor of Pedrogao Grande. “At 3:30 a.m., my mother-in-law woke me up quickly and we never went to sleep again.” I never thought it would come to this side,” she said. “Yesterday, we saw the fire but thought it was very far.
Isabel Brandao told The Associated Press on Sunday that she had feared for her life when she saw the Pedrogao Grande blaze. Last August, an outbreak of fires across Portugal killed four people, including three on the island of Madeira, and destroyed huge areas of forest. The forest fire deaths were the biggest in memory in Portugal, which saw 25 Portuguese soldiers die fighting wildfires in 1966. More than 350 soldiers on Sunday joined the 700 firefighters who have been struggling to put out the blaze, schools in the area were closed until further notice and outdoor fires were banned. He said authorities were worried about strong winds that could help spread the blaze further. Interior Ministry official Jorge Gomes said firefighting crews were having difficulties battling the fire, which was “very intense” in at least two of its four fronts. She said the country’s judicial police was expecting to complete the identification of the bodies soon in order to release them as early as possible. Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa said the death toll had risen to 62 by the end of Sunday. “Something extraordinary has taken place and we have to wait for experts to properly determine its causes.” “The dimensions of this fire have caused a human tragedy beyond any in our memory,” said Prime Minister Antonio Costa told reporters as he arrived at the scene Sunday. Portugal is prone to forest fires in the dry summer months and temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) hit the area in recent days.Īt least four other significant wildfires were burning Sunday elsewhere in Portugal but the one in Pedrogao Grande was responsible for all the deaths. Investigators found a tree that was hit during a “dry thunderstorm,” the head of the national judicial police said.ĭry thunderstorms are frequent when falling water evaporates before reaching the ground because of high temperatures. A huge wall of thick smoke and bright red flames towered over the tops of trees in the forested Pedrogao Grande area, 150 kilometers (95 miles) northeast of Lisbon where a lightning strike was believed to have sparked the blaze Saturday.
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