Update on Portugal - Post 2: local matters
Now to talk about the area around what was our house, and the people who live there.
A lot of you will be hazy about Portuguese geography so I make no apology for starting with that!
Simplistic explanation: think of Portugal as a rectangle standing on one of its short sides. Draw a Christian-style cross on the rectangle. Our house was roughly where the two lines meet in the middle. The Algarve - sunny, touristy, and unaffected by fires, is on the bottom short side. Lisbon, the capital is about a third of the way up the west long side and Porto, the other main port, is about two thirds. The top short side and the east long side border Spain. Everything from just south of us to and beyond the Spanish border in the north was affected by the fires. The bit a little further south only wasn't because they were burnt out in June of this year. The coast escaped comparatively lightly though Aveiro (just south of Porto) had some fire in outlying districts and the Lisbon coast was likewise affected.
Portugal is small, about the size of England with Wales, Scotland and Cornwall removed. It has a low population - about 10 million which makes it roughly the equivalent of London. It is also quite poor and has recently just started to recover from severe financial difficulties and a period of intense austerity. More about the effects of that in a later post - for now I'll stick with our area, centred on the town of Oliveira do Hospital (nothing to do with modern hospitals but named for one of the town founders, a Knight Hospitaller and his olive orchards).
Oliveira is/was our main shopping centre, about 15-20 minutes drive from the house, but visible from it - you have to drive down a very steep hill then along the river valley then up again at the other side to reach town. It's also the centre for our local council, police, courts, fire service, banks, hospital, supermarkets, etc. etc.
The area around is mostly rural with large villages and their outlying farms in the foothills of the Serra de Estrela (Mountains of the Stars), the highest mountain range in Portugal. (For Brit readers, the main peak is three times the height of Snowdon and there is skiing in the winter.) The main 'industries' are/were timber, sheep (wool and cheese), wine etc. and tourism. It was making rapid headway as the centre of a revitalisation of central Portugal, along with other local towns, Seia, Arganil and Tabua, all of them just far enough from the city of Coimbra (nearer the coast) to be important in their own right.
For details about how the fires affected the Oliveira area, click on the 'cut'.
Nobody was worried about fires. The main fire season was over, the fire services usually protected property well by water-bombing it, and the horrific deaths in Pedrogao Grande in June were due largely to a terrible road accident trapping people who were fleeing the fires in their cars.
Then the fires started on October 15th. The land was very dry - there had been some showery days in September and October but not enough to counter the long hot summer. Hurricane Ophelia, not content with devastating parts of the Caribbean and America, decided to cross the Atlantic and ravage the western coasts of Europe. In Portugal it fanned the flames of fires that had already started.
Nobody knows exactly how the fires started. There is speculation. There was no storm, so lightning seems unlikely. There might have been accidents - people deciding that as it was October they could burn garden rubbish, and suchlike. The vice president of Oliveira council had received death threats after helping to campaign against eucalyptus plantations (for the paper factories) - threats which may have come from people hoping to sell to the eucalyptus growers rather than the paper companies themselves. Some of the threats included wording such as 'we are going to burn you out' but this might have been mere empty words. The fire services are manned by volunteers who only get paid when there are fires. We know that in previous years disgruntled fire fighters have been convicted of starting fires in all the Mediterranean countries (and yes, we know Portugal doesn't touch the Med but it still gets classified as part of the general regions). We also know that someone has already been convicted (he confessed/boasted) for giving the fires a helping hand across the northern border into Spain. However, the Portuguese government has announced that the fires are a regular but comparatively rare natural phenomenon and there is no need for any inquiry.
During the night of 15th/16th the fires spread - exactly like wildfire, which they were - and even the most well meaning of 'bombardiers' (the fire service) were unable to cope. They were reduced to redirecting traffic and trying to help the people who evacuated the villages. We are told that the fires were terrifying. Walls of flame travelled at about 25mph (do the kph conversion yourself if needed) down the hills and into the populated areas.
Houses in their path stood no chance because the sparks were carried by the wind and landed on anything remotely flammable. Other houses, nearby and just as much at risk, were untouched. Modern houses often escaped, because of concrete outer construction, and 'only' lost windows etc. Older houses, like ours, and other renovated properties, just 'went'.
Most people escaped. We have heard truly horrendous stories from friends who got away by the skin of their teeth. Some (not our friends but still people we all mourn), sadly, didn't manage it. The roads were well-nigh impassable, the smoke made it impossible to see the verges and to navigate, even in a familiar area, and there were overturned and burnt out cars. Even in town, the central roundabout was ablaze and the factories and warehouses in the trading estate exploded in a kind of domino effect. This made it hard to get along the main road to Seia which was thought to be the safer option once Oliveira was full of smoke. But eventually the bombardiers cleared a way and people began to evacuate Oliveira, where they'd initially come for safety. The following day, going all the way round by Seia and over the mountains was the only route back to our villages.
There are heartbreaking stories ranging from the tragic to the comparatively trivial.
A family tried to drive into town but met the fire crossing the road. The parents got out and looked to either side for ways to avoid the fire but were both killed. The child, who stayed in the car while they were looking, survived.
A friend had to abandon two of her cats, who refused to be caught. She escaped with her dogs, another cat, and a neighbour. The two runaway cats survived but with burnt paws (which are now recovering).
A couple who had just moved from California because they were worried about fires there, had only had their house a fortnight when they lost it.
Then once the flames were under control the aftermath began.
I have seen pictures taken by a camera drone sent up by the council. The area looks reminiscent of the worst war pictures. I have also seen photographs taken by friends and will no doubt have some of my husband's pictures to post later.
There was no electricity, initially no water, and no phone coverage. This affected everybody and everything, even those who houses or businesses were intact. Nothing could function. Shops couldn't accept credit cards and the ATMs wouldn't work so people ran out of cash. There was no access to news, to communication about family and friends. You could go up the mountains or maybe to Seia and get a signal... if you had transport. The banks, insurance companies, police, hospitals, etc. couldn't do their work. You couldn't phone for an appointment to see anyone so you had to drive a long way to make the appointment in person or wait in a queue - and then hope you had enough petrol to get home because how were you going to buy more? (Even if the nearest petrol station hadn't exploded.) The supermarkets couldn't keep their frozen and chilled goods. They gave most of it away but the people couldn't keep it, either, or, in most cases, cook it. And no, they couldn't use the charred trees either because they were already burnt or because they needed to leave them standing if they wanted compensation. Journalists couldn't get into the area or if they did, get the news out. People were in shock and in some cases suffering the effects of smoke inhalation. Animals were injured. There were over 40 deaths in the Oliveira area alone - more in the Tabua and Arganil areas. Seven of the 'Oliveira' deaths were in our village, Aldeia das Dez.
It was hard to get hot water to wash. By the time he came home, husband was still getting ash out of his skin and clothes. He said he didn't realise just how dirty he was till he reached a hotel shower in France... Everybody was in the same condition!
There have since been volunteer psychiatrists and psychologists from Lisbon, going with council members to check up on people thought to be at risk. One of our friends was in Aldeia with her two youngest daughters (half term) and their four dogs - her husband and two older girls were in UK. The psychs were happy that the girls were OK, despite a nerve racking escape, and that they were quite enjoying online schooling while their parents sorted out the chaos. Others will not have been as fortunate.
(Some of our friends live higher up the nearest hills and were able to get phone signals.)
Longer term effects are only just becoming obvious. Work in the area is badly affected and will be for some time to come, apart from building work, although builders will have to look further afield for materials and tools. Factories have closed or no longer exist. Hotels and restaurants will suffer a huge loss of trade and whilst they might be insured, that won't give jobs to their sometimes temporary/seasonal workers and they might close completely. This will all affect local shops, and most services as well as the general tourist industry. We know one couple who lost their bar. A rebuild can't be instant and in any case, it was rented so they are looking elsewhere but will have to start again. Another couple were unaffected, apart from a tool-shed and its contents, but their rental properties probably won't give them the sort of income they need for quite a while.
After a national scandal about the charitable donations for victims and survivors of the fires in June (over €2million is unaccounted for and has not reached the local people in any form) Oliveira asked for help in the form of clothing, food and construction materials rather than money. All very well, and they are doing a fantastic job of matching up offers of things like farm machinery etc. with those in need, but the response of the Portuguese people was wonderful and now the council have the underground car park full of stuff with no real distribution mechanism in place.
Judging by previous fires, most of which were very localised, the land should start recovering quickly. Husband says the grass is already growing. Nobody is sure about the pine forests. The tops of the trees seemed unaffected but then in the days after the fire they gradually turned brown and whether the trees will recover or not, nobody really knows. There could be seeds and they could have survived.
The birds are beginning to return but might have to move if they want to eat this year. The same goes for the rest of the native animals. Wild boar, otters, mongooses, genets, squirrels, etc. will all feel the effects, even if they survived the flames. Even bats, lizards, and other smaller creatures will find life hard. The eagles are back but we think only the vulture ones will have sufficient food and then not for long.
So far as anyone knows, the jewels in the tourism crown have survived. Pio Dao is unaffected. Linhares is fine. Conimbriga is in business as usual. Other historic buildings and ruins are still there. Obviously the peaks of the Serra are as normal and there will be snow in the winter. The people are strong and care about each other. Hopefully, the communities in the Oliveira area will recover and grow again.
In a third post I will talk about Portugal in general and the wider implications of the events of October 2017.
A lot of you will be hazy about Portuguese geography so I make no apology for starting with that!
Simplistic explanation: think of Portugal as a rectangle standing on one of its short sides. Draw a Christian-style cross on the rectangle. Our house was roughly where the two lines meet in the middle. The Algarve - sunny, touristy, and unaffected by fires, is on the bottom short side. Lisbon, the capital is about a third of the way up the west long side and Porto, the other main port, is about two thirds. The top short side and the east long side border Spain. Everything from just south of us to and beyond the Spanish border in the north was affected by the fires. The bit a little further south only wasn't because they were burnt out in June of this year. The coast escaped comparatively lightly though Aveiro (just south of Porto) had some fire in outlying districts and the Lisbon coast was likewise affected.
Portugal is small, about the size of England with Wales, Scotland and Cornwall removed. It has a low population - about 10 million which makes it roughly the equivalent of London. It is also quite poor and has recently just started to recover from severe financial difficulties and a period of intense austerity. More about the effects of that in a later post - for now I'll stick with our area, centred on the town of Oliveira do Hospital (nothing to do with modern hospitals but named for one of the town founders, a Knight Hospitaller and his olive orchards).
Oliveira is/was our main shopping centre, about 15-20 minutes drive from the house, but visible from it - you have to drive down a very steep hill then along the river valley then up again at the other side to reach town. It's also the centre for our local council, police, courts, fire service, banks, hospital, supermarkets, etc. etc.
The area around is mostly rural with large villages and their outlying farms in the foothills of the Serra de Estrela (Mountains of the Stars), the highest mountain range in Portugal. (For Brit readers, the main peak is three times the height of Snowdon and there is skiing in the winter.) The main 'industries' are/were timber, sheep (wool and cheese), wine etc. and tourism. It was making rapid headway as the centre of a revitalisation of central Portugal, along with other local towns, Seia, Arganil and Tabua, all of them just far enough from the city of Coimbra (nearer the coast) to be important in their own right.
For details about how the fires affected the Oliveira area, click on the 'cut'.
Nobody was worried about fires. The main fire season was over, the fire services usually protected property well by water-bombing it, and the horrific deaths in Pedrogao Grande in June were due largely to a terrible road accident trapping people who were fleeing the fires in their cars.
Then the fires started on October 15th. The land was very dry - there had been some showery days in September and October but not enough to counter the long hot summer. Hurricane Ophelia, not content with devastating parts of the Caribbean and America, decided to cross the Atlantic and ravage the western coasts of Europe. In Portugal it fanned the flames of fires that had already started.
Nobody knows exactly how the fires started. There is speculation. There was no storm, so lightning seems unlikely. There might have been accidents - people deciding that as it was October they could burn garden rubbish, and suchlike. The vice president of Oliveira council had received death threats after helping to campaign against eucalyptus plantations (for the paper factories) - threats which may have come from people hoping to sell to the eucalyptus growers rather than the paper companies themselves. Some of the threats included wording such as 'we are going to burn you out' but this might have been mere empty words. The fire services are manned by volunteers who only get paid when there are fires. We know that in previous years disgruntled fire fighters have been convicted of starting fires in all the Mediterranean countries (and yes, we know Portugal doesn't touch the Med but it still gets classified as part of the general regions). We also know that someone has already been convicted (he confessed/boasted) for giving the fires a helping hand across the northern border into Spain. However, the Portuguese government has announced that the fires are a regular but comparatively rare natural phenomenon and there is no need for any inquiry.
During the night of 15th/16th the fires spread - exactly like wildfire, which they were - and even the most well meaning of 'bombardiers' (the fire service) were unable to cope. They were reduced to redirecting traffic and trying to help the people who evacuated the villages. We are told that the fires were terrifying. Walls of flame travelled at about 25mph (do the kph conversion yourself if needed) down the hills and into the populated areas.
Houses in their path stood no chance because the sparks were carried by the wind and landed on anything remotely flammable. Other houses, nearby and just as much at risk, were untouched. Modern houses often escaped, because of concrete outer construction, and 'only' lost windows etc. Older houses, like ours, and other renovated properties, just 'went'.
Most people escaped. We have heard truly horrendous stories from friends who got away by the skin of their teeth. Some (not our friends but still people we all mourn), sadly, didn't manage it. The roads were well-nigh impassable, the smoke made it impossible to see the verges and to navigate, even in a familiar area, and there were overturned and burnt out cars. Even in town, the central roundabout was ablaze and the factories and warehouses in the trading estate exploded in a kind of domino effect. This made it hard to get along the main road to Seia which was thought to be the safer option once Oliveira was full of smoke. But eventually the bombardiers cleared a way and people began to evacuate Oliveira, where they'd initially come for safety. The following day, going all the way round by Seia and over the mountains was the only route back to our villages.
There are heartbreaking stories ranging from the tragic to the comparatively trivial.
A family tried to drive into town but met the fire crossing the road. The parents got out and looked to either side for ways to avoid the fire but were both killed. The child, who stayed in the car while they were looking, survived.
A friend had to abandon two of her cats, who refused to be caught. She escaped with her dogs, another cat, and a neighbour. The two runaway cats survived but with burnt paws (which are now recovering).
A couple who had just moved from California because they were worried about fires there, had only had their house a fortnight when they lost it.
Then once the flames were under control the aftermath began.
I have seen pictures taken by a camera drone sent up by the council. The area looks reminiscent of the worst war pictures. I have also seen photographs taken by friends and will no doubt have some of my husband's pictures to post later.
There was no electricity, initially no water, and no phone coverage. This affected everybody and everything, even those who houses or businesses were intact. Nothing could function. Shops couldn't accept credit cards and the ATMs wouldn't work so people ran out of cash. There was no access to news, to communication about family and friends. You could go up the mountains or maybe to Seia and get a signal... if you had transport. The banks, insurance companies, police, hospitals, etc. couldn't do their work. You couldn't phone for an appointment to see anyone so you had to drive a long way to make the appointment in person or wait in a queue - and then hope you had enough petrol to get home because how were you going to buy more? (Even if the nearest petrol station hadn't exploded.) The supermarkets couldn't keep their frozen and chilled goods. They gave most of it away but the people couldn't keep it, either, or, in most cases, cook it. And no, they couldn't use the charred trees either because they were already burnt or because they needed to leave them standing if they wanted compensation. Journalists couldn't get into the area or if they did, get the news out. People were in shock and in some cases suffering the effects of smoke inhalation. Animals were injured. There were over 40 deaths in the Oliveira area alone - more in the Tabua and Arganil areas. Seven of the 'Oliveira' deaths were in our village, Aldeia das Dez.
It was hard to get hot water to wash. By the time he came home, husband was still getting ash out of his skin and clothes. He said he didn't realise just how dirty he was till he reached a hotel shower in France... Everybody was in the same condition!
There have since been volunteer psychiatrists and psychologists from Lisbon, going with council members to check up on people thought to be at risk. One of our friends was in Aldeia with her two youngest daughters (half term) and their four dogs - her husband and two older girls were in UK. The psychs were happy that the girls were OK, despite a nerve racking escape, and that they were quite enjoying online schooling while their parents sorted out the chaos. Others will not have been as fortunate.
(Some of our friends live higher up the nearest hills and were able to get phone signals.)
Longer term effects are only just becoming obvious. Work in the area is badly affected and will be for some time to come, apart from building work, although builders will have to look further afield for materials and tools. Factories have closed or no longer exist. Hotels and restaurants will suffer a huge loss of trade and whilst they might be insured, that won't give jobs to their sometimes temporary/seasonal workers and they might close completely. This will all affect local shops, and most services as well as the general tourist industry. We know one couple who lost their bar. A rebuild can't be instant and in any case, it was rented so they are looking elsewhere but will have to start again. Another couple were unaffected, apart from a tool-shed and its contents, but their rental properties probably won't give them the sort of income they need for quite a while.
After a national scandal about the charitable donations for victims and survivors of the fires in June (over €2million is unaccounted for and has not reached the local people in any form) Oliveira asked for help in the form of clothing, food and construction materials rather than money. All very well, and they are doing a fantastic job of matching up offers of things like farm machinery etc. with those in need, but the response of the Portuguese people was wonderful and now the council have the underground car park full of stuff with no real distribution mechanism in place.
Judging by previous fires, most of which were very localised, the land should start recovering quickly. Husband says the grass is already growing. Nobody is sure about the pine forests. The tops of the trees seemed unaffected but then in the days after the fire they gradually turned brown and whether the trees will recover or not, nobody really knows. There could be seeds and they could have survived.
The birds are beginning to return but might have to move if they want to eat this year. The same goes for the rest of the native animals. Wild boar, otters, mongooses, genets, squirrels, etc. will all feel the effects, even if they survived the flames. Even bats, lizards, and other smaller creatures will find life hard. The eagles are back but we think only the vulture ones will have sufficient food and then not for long.
So far as anyone knows, the jewels in the tourism crown have survived. Pio Dao is unaffected. Linhares is fine. Conimbriga is in business as usual. Other historic buildings and ruins are still there. Obviously the peaks of the Serra are as normal and there will be snow in the winter. The people are strong and care about each other. Hopefully, the communities in the Oliveira area will recover and grow again.
In a third post I will talk about Portugal in general and the wider implications of the events of October 2017.