At 14:33 pm on Saturday, 3 September, the first fire started, in the Alte area, in the municipality of Loulé. Then followed «three more occurrences on the line between Silves, Portimão and Monchique». In fact, in addition to these four most significant ignitions, on Saturday afternoon «there were many more, some of them resolved by the people», others that required the intervention of sapper teams and firefighters.
The most difficult fire to put out turned out to be the one that started on the north slope of the Serra de Monchique, below Fóia, and moved to the south slope, causing fear that it would only stop at sea.
In total, 403 hectares were burned in 26 hours, of which 381 in the Fóia area and 22 in Porto de Lagos/Odelouca.
This was, in short, the situation that took place last weekend, according to the operational status of the Special Combat Device a. Forest Fires (DECIF) done this morning at the weekly CDOS meeting that took place in Fóia (Monchique).
Richard Marques, commander of the Portimão Volunteer Fire Brigade and who was also the operational commander in this theater of operations in the Monchique mountains, recalled that the first fire broke out at 14h, Close of Old woman, where 64 operatives, 17 assets and two initial attack helicopters were immediately sent.
The head of the Heli Brigade reported, at 14:54 pm, that "the fire is already of some magnitude and is in a recessed valley." Thanks to prompt intervention, this fire was reported to have been subdued at 15:16 pm.
At 16h, the fire started in the area of Port of Lagos quality odelouca, which had three separate fronts. At 16:35 pm, when the first means arrived at the scene, it was reported that the fire had "two active fronts to be plowed with intensity towards the Sanitary Landfill and another (which is 600 meters away) to be plowed towards Odelouca".
138 operatives, 48 technical resources and a helicopter were sent here, resources later reinforced. The fire was declared dominated at 21:08 pm.
But however, at 16h, another fire had already started, a short distance away, in the Caldas de Monchique. This outbreak was detected by the head of the Barlavento Brigade when he moved to the fire in the Port of Lagos, who reported a situation of "difficult access" and asked for "more means to be sent". This fire was eventually dominated at 17:50 pm.
In the area of Foil, the fire started at 17h on Saturday and was only dominated the following day, at 19:40 pm. It took about 26 hours to consume a vast area where eucalyptus predominates, with woods, uncultivated areas and many houses scattered in the middle.
It started with two spots near the Fóia radar station and another near the dam. This is where an arsonist was arrested in the act, while setting fire to a pile of cistus. He was picked up by two GNR agents, a couple who were off duty and noticed the man's strange movements.
If the arsonist hasn't been caught there, who knows how many more fires he would still have set down the mountain range. The authorities are convinced that this entire sequence of fires, from Alte to Fóia, was caused by the same individual, a 49-year-old man, married, father of one child, bartender by profession, resident in Loulé, who claimed psychiatric problems when was heard in court on Monday, and who was in preventive detention. The suspect allegedly alleged, during the judicial interrogation in the Court of Portimão, that he did not remember having set any other fires other than that of Fóia, for which he was caught, but the modus operandi used in the remaining focuses was similar.
During the early hours of Sunday, despite the fact that the Fóia fire was already considered to be under control, "there were projections, there were more problems", one at the beginning of the morning, the other at 4:00 am, also admitted commander Richard Marques, during the summary that presented.
This fire, which ended up consuming 381 hectares, was the one that most worried the operational command, having been used to fight it, according to Richard Marques, 626 operational (at the peak were on the ground 411), 200 technical means and nine aircraft, of which two medium bomber planes and three heavy bomber planes.
The official also highlighted the importance of the intervention of the tracking machines, mostly owned by the Municipal Councils but also provided by private parties, and which proved to be essential to open accesses so that the firefighters could pass or to stop the progression of the flames in some zone. On slopes with lots of loose rocks and steep slopes, the operators of these machines lived in situations of "great danger".
The human resources of the Algarve firefighters were also reinforced by groups from Beja, Évora, Lisbon and Sul (Setúbal) and by five military platoons, who are still in the mountains, participating in the aftermath and consolidation operations, which should be concluded today .
The official noted that "the operation is still ongoing, under surveillance."
And he recalled that, in his entire life as a fireman, he had never witnessed a situation in which, instead of decreasing during the night, the temperature had even risen, while the air humidity remained very low.
«We expected, during the night period, to be able to have an increase in the air humidity, but that didn't happen, the humidity was 15%, while we had the same air temperature as at 15:00». On the other hand, recalled Richard Marques, “although the wind was light, the mountain breezes were pushing the fire. We had the same thermal load at dawn that is felt at 3 pm».
The objective of the strategy outlined by the operational command was to prevent the fire from “passing to the west of the wind farm road and south of the Casais/Marmelete road”. If that had happened, guaranteed the commander Abel Gomes, also present at the briefing, «I only stopped at Aljezur or at sea, because from here to there are kilometers and kilometers of continuous forest stands». And, in fact, «the fire was caught along the Casais/Marmelete road».
The priority, recalled Richard Marques, was "safeguarding people and protecting homes." There were two situations in which, “as a preventive measure”, two people were removed from their homes, one with reduced mobility and the other bedridden, moved to relatives' homes.
As can be seen in the Fonte das Bicas area or in Barranco do Silvestre, where there are scattered houses, mostly owned by foreign residents, the fire consumed everything around the houses, sometimes affecting the gardens.
The setting is now a huge sea of ash and black trunks, with white houses and blue pools glimmering in the middle. But, for a fire that was feared that it would go out of control, the end result could have been, after all, much worse...
Vaz Pinto, Algarve's district operational commander, who chaired the meeting, summed up that it was an operation in a “high danger area, with many scattered houses, with very difficult access, even for crawlers”.
"It's a good thing the fire was contained so quickly," he said, to admit at once that "I myself had doubts that we could manage it."
Fed up with seeing these fires happen and destroying in hours the work of a lifetime, Rui André, Mayor of Monchique announced that a Municipal Forest Plan is being prepared, «with clear norms and rules».
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