the fire which took place this afternoon in the warehouse of the company “Neoparts”, in Guia's Retail Park, was considered dominated at around 22:30, but the extinction and aftermath works continue until this Thursday morning. The flames almost completely destroyed the premises of this automobile company.
António Coelho, commander of the Albufeira Fire Department, explained to journalists that, after the fire had been overcome, "the entire surface will have to be very well wet" and that there are parts of the structure that "threaten to collapse", which led to the Albufeira Municipal Civil Protection Service had mobilized a backhoe to support the operations.
The fire has no known origin, but it is known that, inside the warehouse, there were «about 20 vehicles» of the company, which will have been destroyed.
It took the Fire Department eight minutes to arrive at the site (from Albufeira), facing, according to the captain, «problems with the congestion of the EN125». Even so, despite the quick response, when they arrived at the theater of operations they found "virtually all the stuffing already on fire".
In addition to this, they faced another constraint: the alert, given at 19:20 pm, indicated, at the beginning, that it was a forest fire, which complicated the dispatch of resources. Only "later was it noted that it was a burning warehouse," explained the commander.
The high temperatures inside the warehouse were one of the obstacles that the Fire Department faced, as well as the lack of water.
"Right now, the public network does not have water flow, which has led to vehicles traveling a few kilometers to find water points with a quick filling capacity," said the official. Even so, he assured, "we never ran out of water."
Carlos Saraiva was there and was one of the first people to notice the fire. “I called for help. Everything was very fast and there were many explosions», he told journalists.
One of the walls of this warehouse collapsed and Carlos Saraiva even says he felt "the heat of the flames". "This scared", even because "there are many warehouses around here" to which the flames could have spread, added the witness.
As for the possibility of propagation of the flames, Commander António Coelho told journalists "that it has been achieved, in some way, the guarantee that the flames do not leave the affected warehouse".
There were 23 firefighters and 00 vehicles fighting this fire at around 124:33.
Photos: Pedro Lemos|Sul Informação
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