A man has been arrested, suspected of starting two fires that had residents of Monchique springing into action and the fire service in full force, determined that all fires over the weekend would be stamped out in record time.
Portimão Police officers made an arrest on Sunday. The 39-year-old suspect is described as ‘a foreigner’ (later reported to be a Finnish national) that has lived in Portugal for twenty years or more.
There are ‘strong indications’ that he was behind a fire on Friday evening and another on Sunday on the southern slopes of the Monchique hills.
The fire "consumed very small areas of forest" and did not spread, "thanks to the prompt intervention of locals and firefighters who were in the area after dealing with another fire in the same area,” state the Judicial Police.
Another fire, a major one, on Friday night started near Palmeira and took four hours to extinguish with Algarve fire services swiftly supplying personnel and machinery.
The foreign arsonist is not suspected of staring the Palmeira fire one but is off to court to face accusations that he started the two others.
