The municipalities of Loulé, São Brás de Alportel and Tavira, in the district of Faro, present this Thursday a maximum danger of rural fire, on the day that a maximum temperature of 35 degrees in Santarém, Évora and Beja.
The Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA) also placed more than 30 municipalities in Faro, Beja, Santarém, Portalegre, Castelo Branco, Guarda, Viseu and Bragança at very high risk of fire.
More than 70 counties of the districts of Faro, Évora, Beja, Lisbon, Leiria, Viseu, Guarda, Castelo Branco, Portalegre, Santarém, Viseu, Guarda, Vila Real and Bragança are also in high fire danger this Thursday.
According to the IPMA, this Thursday it will be the hottest day of the weekwith heat associated with “a mass of hot air, coming from North Africa, and transported in the circulation of an anticyclone located near the Iberian Peninsula”.
Since the beginning of the year, 2,226 forest fires have been registered and 7,466 hectares of rural areas have been burned, according to data from the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF).
The risk of fire, determined by the IPMA, has five levels, ranging from reduced to maximum.
The calculations are obtained from the air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and the amount of precipitation in the last 24 hours.
The IPMA forecasts for this Thursday on the continent the continuation of the heat, with generally cloudy skies, sometimes very cloudy with high clouds, and an increase in temperature, except in the Algarve.
The minimum temperatures will vary between 11 degrees Celsius (in Bragança) and 20 degrees (in Beja) and the maximum between 23 (in Aveiro, Porto and Viana do Castelo) and 35 (in Évora, Beja and Santarém).
Source: Observadora
