Big forest fire near my house

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 18:55:49 +0000

I live in Condados de Taverede, on the south slope of the Serra da Boa Viagem near Figueira da Foz.

Right now, we have a big forest fire coming down towards figueira da foz. Started at 15:30.

I can see the flames from my house, 500mts or so away. My neighbor to the north had his home touched by the fire.

Right now I’m watering the roof tops, while planes loaded with water cruise be at low altitude. my house seems to be in their flight path right now, so we get a very closer look at them.

Back to the roof.

Update 20:30: until 10 minutes ago, it seemed that it was traveling west, passing us by. We can look to N/NW and see about 45º of horizon with a red sky, and specs of fire flying in the air.

But a new front appeared to the NE of our house, and that one is moving our way. So nest hours will be bad around here.

We moved António to another house, of friends in the city. He will sleep there tonight. Is safer.

Update 20:50: the second front is picking up steam, and it’s a bit scary. The noise of the pine trees burning fills the air.

I’ll try to get some pictures, but Murphy as always, is not helping: both cameras where out of batteries.

Update 00:40: We can see the top of the flames from the house. The second front is still dangerous to us.

Right now, there are 4 or 5 main areas burning. Near my brother-in-law house, we could see flames around ²⁰⁄₃₀ meters.

Going to sleep a bit, check back around 3:00 to see is the fire near us os closer or not.

Last update: I woke up around 3:00 and circled the house. I climbed to the roof again. The front that was closer to our home was controlled around 400mts from our home. We got lucky with the wind direction.

The areas near Buarcos (and notice that Buarcos is inside the urban perimeter) where still burning. My brother-in-law was awake most of the night, the fire was less than 100mts from his home.

Around 7:00 things where pretty much controlled around the city. The fire had turned north, to the mountain.

It’s Tuesday now, and before getting back to Lisbon I was able to drive through the open roads in the mountain. Basically, it’s not there anymore. The entire south slope is gone. All the trees, vegetation burned to the ground. I don’t have exact numbers yet about the total area that was burned.

Officially, there was no house burned down, but I saw a lot of roofs with burned areas and houses that had everything burned all around them, so it was very close. Our neighbor to the north, the terrain around his house burned down. I saw the flames licking his walls and windows.

The north slope was still burning monday evening. It was declared extinct around 20:00 yesterday, but around 150 firemen where position to spend this night controlling the area.

We had 250 firemen, around 50 trucks and 4 planes in the area during the day and a half that the fire was active. There are no words to thank them all.

Forest fires in Portugal

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 17:11:00 +0000

Portugal is under the worse forest fire season that I have any recollection of. I think that statistically, 4 years ago we had a worse year, but I’m not sure. This year, even if the burned area is lower, they hit several villages and there was substantial property loss as well.

I live in Figureira da Foz, by the ocean, near Coimbra, and we have a big fire right now near some important paper factories. They called in three CanadAir planes to fight it, and they choose to resupply in the river here 500 meters from my office. This was the fourth time they passed over and they keep coming, 4 or 5 minutes between refills.

The videos where taken with a Sony CyberShot with Auto-focus, so you’ll see the image blurring from time to time. Also some solar flash is present sometimes, but I think they are worth the download time.

Tips on how to make the videos smaller (and for future reference, better) are appreciated.

First video was taken from my office window, it just shows the refilling part of the flight.

MOV02948.MPG, 27,5Mb, 1’20

The second one, I moved over to the river bank, and shows the approach they do near (understatement of the year…) the bridge and the refilling part. The second plane is impressive in that only at touch-down, we curves to line himself with the river…

MOV02949.MPG, 40,6Mb, 1’57

The third focus only on the approach “near” the bridge.

MOV02950.MPG, 42,3Mb, 1’57

I don’t know nor I care how much this guys earn for this job. It’s not enough…

They leave Spain and Italy to come here and clean our mess, when our elected officials are taking a break at the beach, and there are really no words of gratitude that we can give them.

Thank you.

fixed: MIME-types are now fixed. update: all videos now available.

Forest on Notes

Big forest fire near my house

Forest fires in Portugal