The President of the Republic and the Prime Minister will visit together, on Monday morning, some of the areas affected by the fires in the north and center of the country. The delegation will fly over the burned areas by helicopter and stop in Baião (Porto district), Vila Pouca de Aguiar (Vila Real district) and Sever do Vouga (Aveiro district). Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Luís Montenegro will be accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, the Minister of Internal Administration, Margarida Blasco, and the Secretary of State for Civil Protection, Paulo Ribeiro.
The first stop will be in Baião, at 10:25 am, following the head of State and members of the Government to the Miradouro da Portela do Gôve, where they will visit the areas affected by the fires and contact residents and residents affected by the fire.
About an hour later, the helicopter lands in Vila Pouca de Aguiar. The last point on the joint agenda between the head of State and the head of Government will be in Sever do Vouga, where a meeting will be held with the presidents of the municipalities with the most damage and the burned area
Nine people died and more than 170 were injured as a result of the fires. The National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority officially counted five deaths in the fires.
Forest fires consumed, between the 15th and 20th of September, around 135 thousand hectares, totaling the burned area in Portugal this year to almost 147 thousand hectares, the third largest in the last decade, according to the European Copernicus system.
At Thursday’s Council of Ministers, diplomas were approved that implement measures advanced by the multidisciplinary working group coordinated by the Deputy Minister of Territorial Cohesion to guarantee “immediate support for families, recovery of housing, support for the recovery of companies, assistance to farmers , restoration of forests, repair of infrastructure and equipment and replacement of damaged equipment”.
Among other measures, the Government announced that it will finance 100% up to a limit of 150 thousand euros the reconstruction and rehabilitation of first homes affected by the fires, a special subsidy to compensate agricultural losses caused by this month’s fires, up to a value of 6,000 euros, and the creation of a support line for treasury and factory reconstruction,
An exceptional regime for contracting public works contracts was also approved to reconcile “the procedural speed required by the severity of the damage caused, with the defense of the State’s interests and strict transparency in the allocation of public funds”.
This Sunday, the Government announced a 25% increase in the daily amount paid to volunteer firefighters assigned to the Special Rural Fire Fighting Device (DECIR) who were on duty during rural fires between the 15th and 19th of this month.
