Marcelo hopes that fire response measures will become more agile and warns:
“Those who make decisions at the last minute often arrive too late.”
The President of the Republic spoke with journalists at the Porto Book Fair this Friday and commented on the measures adopted by the government in response to the fires of recent weeks. The head of state hopes that the fires are already “passing” and, if this situation is confirmed in the coming days, “the idea is, regardless of what happens in September or October, to approve measures that can be implemented with greater flexibility.” This is because decisions taken in the past have proven to be “very slow and bureaucratic.”
In 2017, the head of state believes, it was more difficult to define compensatory measures “because there was no legal basis whatsoever.” Now, however, the situation is different. “It was already applied last year in relation to material damages,” he explained.
For this year, Marcelo says the government has defined “enlargement, taking into account the lessons of the last eight years.” However, the president identifies three distinct types of measures among those announced by Montenegro: those that need to go to Parliament, those that require presidential approval, and those that can be approved by the Council of Ministers.
Fire prevention is something the President believes requires greater action. After the massive Pedrógão Grande fire in 2017, the Socialist government took measures to prevent a repeat, but not all of them “went well.” Marcelo mentioned, for example, the attempt to “replace the existing forest type” with one that “burns less,” as well as decisions about “clearing forest land,” which were hampered by numerous factors, such as the limited capacity of families living in the affected areas.
Now, the head of state will oversee the most urgent projects announced by the government. However, the 25-year pact to prevent new fires like this year’s, mentioned by Montenegro on Thursday night, will not be one of the president’s focuses. “I will monitor it, but my term is six months away,” he explains.
Marcelo didn’t want to, but he commented on the Government’s communication
The President stated more than once that he did not wish to comment on the Government’s announcement, but he nevertheless expressed his opinion. At yesterday’s press conference, Montenegro acknowledged that the perception may have been created that the Government was not closely monitoring the fires. Marcelo agreed with the Prime Minister, emphasizing that the situation worsened very quickly.
“I truly believe that those who are executing and making last-minute decisions often arrive late or don’t fully understand the scope of the situation,” said the head of state, recalling the meeting he had with the government leader on August 13th. He then predicted that the 15th could be “complicated,” due to the persistence of several adverse factors, such as high temperatures and low humidity. “It could not have happened, but it did. From that moment on, the situation worsened. (…) Suddenly, [the fires] spread to the centre, where several fires broke out, concentrating into one enormous one,” he emphasized. Only at the end of the 15th would the European Union’s Civil Protection mechanism be activated.
Marcelo dismissed criticism of the performance of the Minister of Internal Administration, Maria Lúcia Amaral. “It was a difficult challenge for a minister who had just taken office two months ago,” he explained. In previous years, the head of state believes, other, more experienced ministers also “had difficulties.”
Choose “protect lives” and combat difficulty
In 2017, fires left dozens dead, a situation that hasn’t been repeated this year. However, the area burned by 2025 has already surpassed that of eight years ago. “It was a choice that was made,” and it was the right one, says Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. One could ” try to reduce the burned area and, at the same time, look after people and villages,” something that “failed” in the past, or “try to protect human lives, protect villages, even if that means a larger burned area.”
Another factor contributing to the large area burned was the difficulty of fighting the flames. In many cases, Marcelo believed the smoke made it impossible for air resources to operate, making ground combat the only option.
The worsening of the situation was also “sudden.” During the day, the President says, Civil Protection demonstrated optimism in the fight. “I was updating the situation with the Secretary-General of Civil Protection, and he said, ‘It’s getting better, unless there are problems overnight.’ And, in many cases, there were problems overnight.”