Government must "make explicit" lack of air resources, says José Luís Carneiro

"It is necessary to explain why the air resources have not yet been allocated and we will wait for the Government's response", said José Luís Carneiro to journalists, before a session to present his candidacy for the leadership of the PS with socialist militants from Baixo Alentejo.

On Tuesday, the mayors of the municipalities of Grândola (CDU), in the district of Setúbal, Ourique and Moura (both PS), in the district of Beja, warned, in statements to the Lusa news agency, of the lack of aerial resources to fight fires and called for an urgent solution.

The placement of helicopters in the air resources centers of these three Alentejo municipalities (one in each municipality) was scheduled for the 1st of this month, within the scope of the Special Device for Fighting Rural Fires (DECIR) of 2025, which ended up not happening.

According to José Luís Carneiro, "it is very important that the Government responds to this need, which has been identified by several officials in this region".

For the candidate for PS secretary-general, who was Minister of Internal Administration between 2022 and 2024, "at a time when temperatures are getting hotter and humidity is decreasing, when the risk of fire is increasing, it is very important to have an aerial resource to give greater operationality to the forces fighting fires".

Therefore, he added, "it is very important that the Government can explain what it is doing to respond to this need in the territory".

Following the alert issued by the mayors, the Federation of Firefighters of the District of Setúbal criticized the "continuous" lack of helicopters in the municipalities of Grândola and Ourique and demanded the "immediate deployment" of operational aerial resources to combat rural fires.

The Intermunicipal Community of Alentejo Litoral (CIMAL) also contested, on Wednesday, the "18-day delay" in deploying aerial fire-fighting resources in Grândola and Ourique, accusing the Government of putting "a vast forest heritage at risk".

On Wednesday, when questioned by Lusa, the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANPEC) indicated that the fight against rural fires in the country currently has 67 aerial resources, nine fewer than the aircraft planned for this phase of the device.

In the response sent to Lusa by Civil Protection, only the locations where there are air resources were mentioned, without mentioning which aircraft were missing.

Lusa asked the Portuguese Air Force, the entity responsible for contracting aerial resources to combat rural fires, about the reasons for the lack of aircraft, but received no response.

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