The history of a large fire or how a series of events lead to 14000 Hectares burned in 3 days

Abstract

The year 2013 was particularly negative with regard to forest fires in Portugal. Besides of the large burned area (around 141000 ha until October 15th, according to official data), for a small country, 8 firefighters and a Mayor lost their lives while fighting the fires. In this paper we try to describe the series of events that led to the burning of around 14000 ha in the Northern Region of Portugal, in an unusually short period of time, and in what was the largest fire of the civil year. This fire was to be known as the Picões fire. The work described here is based on a report ordered by the Portuguese Minister of Internal Administration, and is part of a larger study involving another large fire (in Serra do Caramulo, Central Portugal) and the analysis of the accidents that caused the death of the 9 referred persons. Countryman’s fire environment (1972) and the series of events that potentially led to the unusually large burned area for that region are described in this paper. Fire behaviour is also analysed, with the help of fire behaviour simulations produced for specific periods of the fire.