54 people detained this year for forest fires
18 October 2019
Published by https://www.theportugalnews.com/
PORTUGAL – GNR arrested 54 people this year for forest fire crimes and recorded 6,337 offenses for lack of land clearing and 854 notices for burning, the authority said on 11 October.
In a statement, the Republican National Guard (GNR) takes stock of the “Safe Forest 2019” operation, which began on 15 January and ends on 6 December and includes various phases, from awareness raising and surveillance, reinforcement of patrols and surveillance, and detection and combat of rural fires.
The GNR notes that from 15 January to 10 October, the day on which the critical period of the Forest Fire Defence System ended, 6,014 forest fire crimes were recorded, resulting in the arrest of 54 people and the identification of 535 others.
That security force also recorded 6,337 misdemeanours this year due to lack of fuel management (land clearing) and 854 notices for non-compliance with burn regulations.
The GNR also mentions that, since 15 January until 10 October, it carried out about 6,200 awareness actions, reaching more than 122,000 people with the objective of alerting to the importance of a set of preventive procedures to be adopted, namely: on fire use, bush clearing and land clearing, and maintenance of fuel management lanes.
The corporation states that these actions relate to “personal contact, through initiatives, aimed at mayors, forest producers, the school community, farmers, associations and the general population”.
GNR adds that it will continue to carry out street and door-to-door actions, having already carried out about 50,700 patrols this year and covering more than 3.3 million kilometres.
According to that security force, 26 percent of the first and second fire warnings were issued by the GNR National Watchtower Network, thus “providing a faster and more effective response to fire fighting.”
The latest report from the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) indicates that between 1 January and 30 September there were 10,359 rural fires, 16 more than in the same period of 2018, resulting in 41,014 hectares of burnt land, 375 hectares more than in the same period last year.
The ICNF points out that September was the month with the highest number of rural fires (2,458) and July was the month which saw the largest area burned this year (14,035 hectares).
