The declarations that the Prime Minister delivered yesterday, 8 August, in the National Civil Protection Authority ( declarations published in full in the annex ) have been decontextualized and misrepresented .
The Prime Minister emphasized that in the face of a climate situation that the IPMA described as “an exceptional heat situation that had never been observed in the country, where August 4 was the warmest of the century and all records were beaten”, were registered 582 ignitions in these five most critical days. Of these 582 ignitions were recorded only 26 fires and of these only one, that of Monchique, had this dimension. That is, this, obviously, is an exception. It is the exception that confirms the rule of what happened in the whole of the Country.
The Prime Minister not only did not attempt to de-dramatize or devalue the seriousness of the situation in Monchique, he said. On the contrary, that the situation was alarming and would worsen (“This is an operation that will continue over the next few days. it is worth having the illusion of thinking that this fire will be erased in the next few hours.It will not be erased in the next few hours.The next few hours will be particularly adverse from the point of view of temperature and from the point of view of wind speed, both from the point of view of relative humidity “).
And it is also false that the words of the Prime Minister have been to praise the prevention policies promoted by the Government. The Prime Minister praised, yes, all the Portuguese, for the effort of cleaning done throughout the year and for the containment of risky behaviors. The first words were addressed to the population, secondly to the civil protection agents, and thirdly to the mayors, never referring to the Government’s actions.
Finally, the Prime Minister stresses that it is too early to make any balances of the fires, because the summer started late and also atypical, and that what is absolutely a priority is to ensure the protection of people’s lives, reiterating a word of solidarity to those affected by the fires.
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