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.

The two victims of yesterday’s car crash on Almancil’s Troto bypass have been identified as a British couple who had been on holiday in the Algarve.

The head-on crash at dawn on Thursday morning, happened as the Britons were returning to Faro airport to catch their return flight.

In the second high-profile resignation relating to the fundamental mishandling of Portugal’s two devastating summer fires, Colonel Joaquim Leitão send in his letter of resignation today which was accepted by the prime minister.

Joaquim Leitão had been in charge of the National Civil Protection Authority for about a year and in recent months had under increasing pressure due to evident failures in his handling of the fire-fighting forces at Pedrógão Grande in July and during last weekend’s firestorm that devastated areas of central and northern Portugal.

Madrid is planning to trigger the article that will allow the suspension of Catalonia’s political autonomy. This is planned for Saturday, after the break-away region’s leader missed a deadline to clarify his hitherto ambiguous declaration of independence.

The Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemont, was given a deadline of 10.30am on Thursday to make clear whether Catalonia had declared independence from Spain, or not.

A European Commissioner today announced that the EC is sympathetic to the tragedy that the Portuguese people have suffered in the recent fires and offers its full support.

The European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, said that any public expenditure needed after the devastating fires in Portugal should be considered as "exceptional circumstances" and will not be taken into account by Brussels in its annual assessment of Portugal’s budget.

A new sports complex is to be built next to the Parque das Cidades ‘Estádio Algarve’ football ground on the Loulé-Faro border at a cost of over €1 million.

Legally, the land is a grey area, shared by the two councils which also divide the cost of subsidising the existing football ground, built for the 2004 European Cup and widely recognised as one of the Algarve’s most outstanding white elephants.

The government may bang on about transparency and accountability but local councils continue to act in a covert, furtive and secretive manner, especially when big money is involved, twisting or ignoring environmental rules and fobbing off the public.

Environmental organisation Almargem has demanded a halt to the work of building a network of cement paths across a cliff-top beauty spot in the western Algarve and that a wide-ranging discussion takes place as to the future of Ponta da Piedade near Lagos.

Two people are dead after an early morning accident between two light vehicles on the new Almancil bypass that links Quatro-estradas in Loulé to the Estádio Algarve area on the IC4 Faro dual carriageway.

Three badly injured survivors of the crash were rushed to Faro hospital and are in ‘serious conditions’ according to sources at the District Operations Command.