The Secretary of State for the Interior, Patrícia Gaspar, denied in an interview with CNN that she had refused to send aerial means to fight the Palmela fire, as the president of the local Volunteer Firefighters alleged during the day. “Absolutely false,” replied the ruler.
Patricia Gaspar assured that “It is not the members of the Government who fire aerial or terrestrial means for a forest fire. It is a prerogative that exclusively assists the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority. And these are mostly automatic procedures, which do not even require this type of validation”.
The Secretary of State then explained what justified the absence of heavy aerial combat assets in Palmela: “The fire started at the worst time of the day. In the 3:00 p.m. period, 79 occurrences appeared simultaneously. When the fire breaks out in Palmela, there are planes involved in other combat actions“.
Two helicopters were deployed. As soon as heavy air assets were available, they were deployed to the site,” the minister added.
Patrícia Gaspar also rejected that the lack of resources is the main difficulty in firefighting: “Resource management is a great challenge, in such a difficult scenario, where fires start with unusual speed and force. I would not say that there is a lack of meansthere is an added challenge in managing all these resources that are needed in the theater of operations”.
When asked if there is enough law enforcement, Patrícia Gaspar pointed out: “I cannot have a policeman behind every Portuguese and a firefighter behind every tree”. And she asked everyone to “stay away from the forest areas” and, in cases where you can’t get away, say “no to the use of fire or any conduct that may constitute an increased risk“.
Source: Observadora
