The fire brigades have not yet received around 20 million euros for extraordinary expenses incurred during the fight against rural fires this year, according to the Firefighters League.
The president of the League of Portuguese Firefighters (LBP), António Nunes, reported to Lusa that the corporations “have not yet been reimbursed for extraordinary expenses”, with the biggest concern being the amounts relating to the month of August, since it was the period in which “these expenses grew far beyond what was expected” due to the fires.
Contacted by Lusa, Civil Protection said it hopes to make these payments “as soon as possible”. Civil Protection states that the process is ongoing “through recalculations aimed at settling all values submitted in the Operational Decision Support System”, the ANEPC computer system.
“These calculations are being carried out with a view to regularizing them as quickly as possible”, guarantees ANEPC, estimating that the amount could reach approximately 20 million euros.
According to LBP, “the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) has not paid extraordinary expenses since May”, said António Nunes, adding that this year there was an exception and some humanitarian associations received an advance of 50 thousand euros, but there are many corporations that have much higher expenses and the majority were not reimbursed with any amount.
In addition to the amount stipulated within the scope of the Special Device for Combating Rural Fires (DECIR), which this year was 41 million euros, there are extra expenses that each fire brigade has with fires such as food, fuel and damaged fire engines.
The president of LBP highlighted that the forest fire season is over and the fire brigades sent invoices for June, July, August and September to ANEPC and so far they have not yet been paid.
As an example, he mentioned the case of the humanitarian association of firefighters in Trancoso, which registered one of the biggest fires of the year in the municipality in August and had extraordinary expenses of 70 thousand euros in fuel and 130 thousand euros in meals, having only received 50 thousand euros in advance.
The Government decided this year, due to the duration of the fires, to advance part of the payment of extraordinary expenses of up to 50 million euros.
According to a response sent to Lusa, Civil Protection received this advance from 13 fire brigades, the total of those that requested support.
“These advances were allocated to associations that demonstrated effective expenditure, particularly those located in the areas most affected by the fires”, states ANEPC.
The Authority also said in the months of July, August and September “the outstanding extraordinary expenses relating to the period from 2017 to 2022 were paid”, with the majority of these payments referring to expenses that were submitted to ANEPC after the deadline.
In an interview with Lusa, at the end of September, the Secretary of State for Civil Protection, Rui Rocha, estimated the extraordinary expenses that volunteer fire brigades had this year with rural fires at more than 20 million euros.
“Last year, these extraordinary expenses reached 14 million euros, this year, given the duration and size [dos incêndios]our perspective is that they will certainly exceed 20 million euros”, said the Secretary of State.
This fire season is marked by around 270,000 hectares of burned area, the fourth worst year in terms of area after 2017, 2003 and 2025, and four deaths, including one firefighter, several injuries and total or partial destruction of first and second homes, as well as agricultural and livestock farms and forestry areas.
Portugal was affected by heat waves between July and August, which favored the occurrence of several rural fires, especially in the northern and central interior of the country, with 25 consecutive days with fires and some of them, as was the case with the one that started in Piódão and Trancoso, which lasted 11 and eight days respectively.