Wildfire season: ‘Moment of truth’

This year’s ‘wildfire season’ officially opened on June 1, with 13,335 firefighters; almost 80 aircraft and almost 3,000 appliances at the ready. These will be beefed even further in July (to 15,149 operational staff in 2,596 teams, 81 aircraft and 3,463 appliances) for ‘the Delta level’ of preparedness, which takes the country through the fraught months of July, August and September.

After last year’s acknowledged ‘catastrophes’ – where authorities were criticised for not being sufficiently coordinated; where the government appeared at times to be ‘barely watching’, and when the north and centre burned at times almost uncontrollably – it does appear that the weaknesses have been tackled.

For the first time in a long time, there is a minister of interior administration (Luís Neves, formally the national director of PJ criminal police) who seems ‘up to the task’; alterations have been agreed over how authorities are to be coordinated (with firefighters finally winning operational command in a reorganisation of Civil Protection) and reinforcements, in terms of personnel and firefighting means, have been assured.

But the summer promises to be particularly challenging. Last summer was bad enough – with a conveyor belt of heatwaves assailing the country. But this summer promises to be even worse.

As we wrote this text, the World Meteorological Organisation published a press release, entitled: “Prepare for El Niño”, stressing that above average temperatures are expected “nearly everywhere from June to August”, while experts are predicting an “elevated risk of severe heatwaves, droughts, and localised intense storms”.

The big question, therefore, is ‘how much will Portugal’s preparedness actually stand for?’

Black Hawks come into operation for first time

Two Black Hawk helicopters from the Air Force will be deployed this year for the first time to fight rural fires.

The Black Hawks’ acquisition goes back years (to 2022): this has been a long, drawn out process, involving the training up pilots and maintenance teams to handle the aircraft, which are ‘not new’. As Expresso explained four years ago, the age of these ‘adapted’ aircraft was to a large extent ‘hidden’ by the Air Force: a number of the helis purchased could be up to 35 years old, said the paper. The €42.5 million purchase – agreed by the Socialist government of António Costa – for six medium-lift Sikorski UH-60 Black Hawk military helicopters to integrate into Portugal’s rural firefighting force was 81% financed by the PRR (European Plan for Recovery and Resilience) – the main plus-points being the Black Hawks’ capacity: they can transport as many as 12 firefighters and respective equipment, and carry up to 2,850 litres of water for discharge at the same time.

Wildfire season to see more aircraft equipped with fire retardant

Another novelty for this season is the number of aircraft equipped with fire retardant  – a chemical substance used to reduce, delay or prevent the spread of fire and consequently aid in fire control and extinguishing.

In 2025, fire retardant was used at only one aerial resources centre.

Mário Silvestre, Civil Protection’s national commander told Lusa last month that this year “we will have four more aerial resources centres operating with retardant”, with plans to increase this to five “to ensure that the success rate we currently have in the initial response increases even more.”

As Silvestre stressed, wildfires today are “more intense and spread at a faster rate” than in the past – making additional fire-fighting resources a necessity. “Fire retardant is one of the major initiatives for continuous improvement” in tackling blazes, he said.

Silvestre also said that another improvement introduced this year involves a reorganisation of the fire brigades’ extended response teams, which have been strengthened.

“We carried out an analysis together with fire service commanders and concluded that there were a number of changes that needed to be introduced to this group.

“We are forming the groups to provide additional capacity and to ensure that the commanders of these groups have enhanced management capabilities, keeping the group in action for longer in terms of firefighting and suppression,” he said.

There are also a number of changes to the 2026 Special Rural Firefighting Unit, which allow for a different kind of coordination and capability, command and control in theatres of operations, Silvestre continued, saying that Civil Protection will also seek to enhance the capacity for analysing and utilising fire by introducing specialist teams in each of the country’s sub-regions to analyse major fires.

These reconnaissance and situation assessment teams will pass on information regarding the risk and type of fire to the sector and operations commanders – thereby enabling greater foresight, improving communication and coordination.

As Silvestre stressed in May, operational training was being undertaken “to ensure that communication processes are faster with everyone on the same page, understanding which course of action and methodology to adopt.

“These are a set of circumstances and improvements that all stem from the assessment processes and continuous improvement that we must implement within the system,” he said.

Questioned about recurring criticism regarding a lack of coordination and communication during major firefighting operations (this was particularly acute last year), Sivestre admitted that minor glitches could still occur this season, but that these will be momentary and ‘automatically corrected’.

The scene of a major fire is a complex environment where the demands placed on various emergency services are immense, he said – acknowledging that it is normal for occasional communications to go unnoticed and/ or for messages to fail to get through, but also assuring that the system remains ‘well-coordinated and responds in a unified manner’.

Government forbids ‘complaints to press’

Mário Silvestre’s comments were clearly made to pave the way for what has since come: a stark warning by secretary of state for Civil Protection, Rui Rocha, that any firefighters ‘complaining’ to the press (as was evident last year) “will be punished”.

Rocha then complained that his words were taken out of context. But they have been underscored by his boss, Luís Neves who told reporters “people cannot go around talking individually (…) In times of crisis, in times of stress, what matters is unity, and not, in fact, communications that could jeopardise collective work.”

President of the League of Portuguese Firefighters, António Nunes, agrees, stressing that firefighters who talk to the press, can only do so as “citizens”, not as firefighters…

Thus, the ‘scene is set’: the country is prepared; focused – and aware that already this year, 2,780 rural fires have been flagged, causing a burnt area of 10,387 hectares, with the majority of fires and burned areas occurring in the north: 1,616 and 9,079 hectares respectively.

Compared to the same period in 2025, the number of rural fires and the areas burned has already more than doubled, according to the Integrated Rural Fire Management System (SGIFR).