Fires leave a trail of damage in Vila Pouca de Aguiar
The fires raging in Vila Pouca de Aguiar have already left a trail of destruction and losses: Leopoldo lost a warehouse and his flower business, António saw pine and chestnut trees destroyed and Tiago around 100 beehives.
António Silva, 65, is on duty next to a pine forest that burned in the village of Vilela da Cabugueira, in the parish of Bragado. In the early hours of the morning he was alerted to a fire that had started again and, together with his son and grandson, he managed to stop the flames from spreading.
“We continue working here to ensure that this does not catch on again and spread the fire to other places,” he told Lusa news agency.
Using a tractor with a cistern, they spread water and also did “brush cutting”, digging the ground to cut the brush.
António Silva has not rested for two days because of the threat of fires that broke out in Vila Pouca de Aguiar, district of Vila Real.
“This has been hell,” he stressed, calculating a very high loss since around six hectares of forest from which he derived income, through cork, timber and firewood for sale, as well as around 300 chestnut trees, burned.
He said that the most important thing was that the fire did not reach his house and he assured that he will not give up.
“Planting everything again will be a bit difficult, but I will replant everything, only if my health doesn’t give me the chance”, he stressed.
The president of the Bragado Parish Council, João Videira, said that vacant and private land occupied by maritime pines and cork oaks, as well as agricultural land with fruit trees, burned.
“In Vilela da Cabugueira, around 80% of the village area burned, many hectares burned”, he stressed, highlighting that the locals were committed to protecting their property, at a time when there were not enough operatives on the ground to deal with so many incidents.
It was, he stressed, “what was possible”. “A lot of work was done, although a lot of area was burned”.
Leopoldo Chousal, 65 years old, saw a warehouse burn down in Sabroso de Aguiar, where he had the office of the flower and vegetable import and export company, documentation, machines, forklifts, large refrigerated chests and plants.
“Everything, everything that is used in a company was destroyed, irreparable,” said the Spanish businessman, who settled in this location in 1995.
Leopoldo Chousal estimates a loss of around 450 to 500 thousand euros.
“The truth is that I’m a little confused, I was paralyzed when I saw that the fire was there in front of me and I couldn’t do anything. That’s why I’m going to Spain to spend a few days to see if I can recover, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life,” he stressed.
The company works with around 60 farmers, shipping their produce to Spain.
“I haven’t done the full survey yet, but many swarms and around a hundred hives died,” said Tiago Salgueiro, 43, who works in beekeeping in the parish of Telões as a complement to his activity.
And, for the hives that survived, he explained that they will need to be fed.
“The biggest loss was the fauna and flora, the vegetation, which will be almost zero over the next two to three years. Two mountain ranges burned down. That was the biggest loss,” he stressed.
The president of the Telões Parish Council, Luís Sousa, said that this parish “lost practically its entire forest perimeter” and that producers were left “with zero pasture” for their animals, classifying the situation as “very worrying”.
It was in this parish, in the village of Zimão, that a house burned down, leaving a man in his 50s homeless.
Luís Sousa said that the man is temporarily staying at his brother’s house.
“All the houses were at risk, because it was something out of this world. You’ve only seen it,” he said, adding that this was the village that was “hardest hit”.
A preliminary report indicates that the four fires that broke out in the municipality of Vila Pouca de Aguiar on Monday burned an area of around 8,000 hectares of forest, scrubland and agricultural properties.
Today, the fire in Sabroso de Aguiar remains active and, according to the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority, is being fought by 124 operators, with the support of 40 vehicles.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
