The electricity supply company, EDP could be held responsible for starting the July 17th fire in Pedrógão Grande, which went on to kill 65 people.
Two independent reports, one commissioned by parliament and the other by the Ministry of Internal Administration, have concluded that EDP failed to cut back trees and maintain the land below its electricity cable network as it ran through a strip of forest in Pedrógão Grande. Identified in the reports are two ignition points, both of which are where power lines are too close to trees.
These ignition points are four kilometres apart with aerial photographs clearly showing power cables running so close to the trees that wind would cause a cable to touch a branch and thus, create a spark.
True to form, EDP already has ruled out having any responsibility at all for starting the fire and says it can produce an inspection report from a survey of the area, carried out just two months before the fateful date of July 17th.
The first point in Article 28 of Decree Law 1/92 obliges the electricity supplier to keep vegetation 'at least 2.5 metres from any medium tension line.' The EDP report may show the state of the trees two months before the July fire started, but not on the days leading up to the fire.
João Torres, the Chairman of EDP Distribuição, has been wheeled out to deny everything in the two reports that might point the finger at his company, assuring the SIC news service that the EDP cables are regularly checked over by using helicopters and lasers.
EDP’s flat denial that it has nothing to do with the fire - a denial many will find unsurprising from this traditionally high-handed company - contradicts the evidence submitted in both Pedrógão Grande reports which show that the strips of forest near the medium voltage lines were not cut back and these are the points where the fires started.
Despite the similarity in the two reports which criticice branches near power lines, the actual cause of the ignition has not been established with a conclusion put forward by the police differing from the one in the GNR report.
Instead of drawing a conclusion as to the cause of the start of the fire, the report from the independent commission presents both the GNR and PJ versions but overall is critical of the trees that it claims were growing illegally close to EDP's power lines.
Criticism and suspicions about the medium-voltage power lines are clearer in the report requested from the Centre of Studies on Forest Fires at the University of Coimbra and presented a week ago by Xavier Viegas.
This report concludes that "the most serious fire resulted from the ignitions of Escalos Fundeiros and Regadas which were caused by contacts between the vegetation and a medium voltage electric line," referring to poor management by EDP which had not cut back the tree branches.
Continuing to cite the Coimbra report, "The trees in the immediate vicinity of the supposed place of origin almost touch the electric cables. It is possible that in periods of wind, as at the time the ignition occurred, its branches touched the electric lines. There are indications that these trees have touched these cables several times because there are several burned areas near the cables."
João Ramos, one of the MPs involved in drafting a new law that will guarantee State compensation for the victims of the Pedrógão Grande fires, says the new legislation will not remove any private liabilities and that these will have to be proved in court but he did agree that the reports into the July fires do reveal non-compliance with the vegetation cleaning law.
Lawyers’ opinions are that, if the reports' conclusions can be proved in court, EDP faces a huge claim for civil damages, with those found to be culpable facing jail time.
The great fire of Pedrógão Grande already has been the subject of these two inquiries - but the most important report will be the conclusions contained in the official police report and whether this will lead to the Public Prosecutor mounting a criminal case against EDP.
Comments
There are numerous places around where I live in the heavily wooded Monchique / Marmelete area that low voltage power cables and tree branches rub against each other within a couple of metres of the tarmac public roads, so access therefore cannot be a problem and it does not need a medium voltage cable to cause a fire, a couple of years ago we had a fire within 200 metres of our property due to a low voltage cable that was installed running parallel to the tarmac public road rubbing against the branches of a tree that you could touch whilst stood on the public road.
We have been very lucky that we have had no really major fires in the western Algarve this year but reading this article that fact is obviously no thanks to the intransigence of the EDP, who appear to operate just like the government, putting more effort into the denial of facts and finding excuses for their failure than actually tackling the problem.
A common problem in this area is unknown ownership or multiple ownership. Although clearance teams have statutory rights to access forest land was their confusion over their rights to access in protected Zone Ecologic contributing to a lack of cutting back? If this was indeed the case.