Portugal in flames, again: the open wound of Pedrógão

In July 2025, Portugal burns again. The headlines are familiar, the images almost repeated from memory: valleys covered in smoke, villages surrounded by flames, exhausted firefighters, institutional statements charged with urgency and emotion. The fire in Ponte da Barca, active for several days, has become the longest-lasting of the season, has already consumed thousands of hectares of forest, and continues to require air and ground resources in a days-long battle. The President of the Republic, in statements to RTP3, emphasized the difficulty of fighting the fire and the poor weather conditions. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Internal Affairs traveled to Civil Protection headquarters to monitor the "critical" situation. The institutional tone is familiar: there are "constant rekindlings," "difficult-to-access areas," "unpredictable winds," and "immense commitment from firefighters." All of this is true, but it is also insufficient.

Portugal burns every summer. For as long as I can remember, I can't recall a single year in which the country didn't experience episodes of severe fires. It's become a ritual, almost a fate. But repetition doesn't normalize the problem: it exposes it. What once could have been attributed to exceptional factors now represents a structural failure of forestry policy, land management, and the political will to break the cycle. With each summer that passes without change, we remember Pedrógão Grande. And each time we do, it's because the wound remains open.

The Pedrógão Grande tragedy in June 2017 should have been the turning point. The fire killed 66 people, injured more than 250, and destroyed approximately 53,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land. It was the deadliest fire ever recorded in Portugal. An unprecedented disaster that shook the country's collective conscience. The investigation revealed serious flaws: a lack of timely evacuation, a lack of coordination between entities, ineffective communication, the absence of containment strips, and an abandoned territory covered in dense, flammable vegetation. It wasn't just the heat that was to blame. It was politics, the lack of prevention, and the way the state abandoned rural areas for decades. It was sworn that this would be the last disaster of its kind. But it wasn't. Four months later, in October 2017, new fires, this time centered in the Central region, especially in Oliveira do Hospital and Santa Comba Dão, caused more than 50 deaths. The promise of “never again” lasted less than half a year.

Since then, some specific measures have been taken: legislative reforms, reorganization of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority, land-clearing programs, and incentives for forest management. But the essentials remain undone. Portugal continues to treat fires as a problem to be combated, not prevented. It continues to view fire as an unpredictable natural phenomenon, rather than a predictable consequence of the land use model, monoculture, lack of planning, and human-induced desertification.

The available data leaves no room for doubt. Between 1980 and 2020, Portugal was the only southern European country where the burned area increased significantly. While Spain, Italy, and Greece managed to reduce the average number of hectares burned per 100,000 hectares of land by more than half, Portugal saw this number grow by 65%. In the 1980s, an average of 865 hectares burned per 100,000 hectares of land. Between 2001 and 2010, the figure rose to 1,737. In the last decade, albeit with a slight decline, it remained at 1,427, still more than double the number recorded in Italy, Spain, and Greece during the same period.

This behavior cannot be explained by climate. All these countries face high temperatures, prolonged droughts, winds, and extreme events. The difference lies in public policies, forest management, anticipatory capacity, and human occupation of the territory. Portugal stands out negatively because it fails where others have learned to correct.

Given this scenario, an uncomfortable but inevitable question arises: who is responsible for this continued failure? And, even more delicate, who benefits from the recurrence of the problem?

Responsibility is multiple and diffuse. It begins with successive governments of varying political persuasions, which have neglected the interior and failed to implement a coherent, sustainable, and financially sound forestry policy. It also involves local authorities that fail to implement planning measures or monitor fuel management zones. It also involves the firefighting structure, which is often reactively planned, with emergency procurements, hasty purchases, and aerial asset contracts that generate huge profits for a few and little public oversight. There is, and it must be stated clearly, an economy that revolves around fire.

Fires mobilize millions of euros every year for logistics, equipment, fuel, accommodation, air resources, emergency contracts, and extraordinary support. Some companies make a living from this. There are city councils that depend on this funding for construction and maintenance. There are contracts that only exist because there are fires. And there is a country that seems resigned to living like this. The outrage lasts as long as the news is on the air. Then silence returns, until next summer.

But it doesn't have to be this way. The solution isn't simply stepping up the fight, heroic and necessary as that may be. It's prevention. And prevention implies changing the land management model. Portugal needs a national forest management plan that is implemented, monitored, and regularly updated. It's urgent to diversify the forest. It's essential to promote small-scale agriculture, create incentives for repopulating the interior, and financially support those who choose to live and work in rural areas. It's necessary to restore the forest ranger corps, once a key player in environmental surveillance and education, and equip it with technical resources, ongoing training, and autonomy.

Furthermore, we need public policies that articulate the environment, land use planning, civil protection, and social cohesion. We cannot continue to operate in siloed ways. The fires reflect a deeper problem: the country remains unbalanced, concentrated on the coast, dependent on urban centers, and indifferent to the interior. Until this changes, the flames will continue to be inevitable.

Portugal needs political courage. Not to repeat promises on ash-covered days, but to act on rainy days, when the news no longer mentions fires. Effective prevention takes place during the winter months. It's when the forest is green and the weather is calm that plans must be approved, land inspected, vegetation cleared, and safety corridors created. This is when investment is cheaper, more efficient, and less tragic. But this requires vision, will, and commitment.

July 2025 shows we haven't learned. We continue to manage the forest with shortsightedness, ignoring technical knowledge, and postponing difficult decisions. We continue to praise firefighters while letting them fight an enemy we ourselves allowed to grow. We continue to feign surprise at what is, year after year, rigorously predictable.

Pedrógão Grande should have marked the end of an era. It should have marked the beginning of a new approach, focused on prevention, science, planning, and respect for the territory. Instead, it became a symbol of what we haven't learned. An open wound that bleeds every summer. A historical milestone that repeats itself in new forms, in new regions, but with the same pain and impotence.

If we want the future to be different, we have to start now. Not after the next fire. Not when cameras film the flames. Not when villages need to be evacuated. Now. Because, as history has taught us, when we do nothing, the fire does it for us. And it always exacts the highest price: that of life, memory, and territory.