Sunday morning: air support was back in action to dump water on the fire in the hills, north of Monchique.
District Command is carrying out "the reconnaissance of the terrain, in the light of day, to see the area as a whole," according to its Commander Vaz Pinto.
A full briefing on Saturday morning outlined the current situation in Monchique where Friday’s fire continues on two fronts.
The fire that started in the Perna da Negra area of Monchique, is expected to get worse this afternoon as the wind picks and the temperature rises still further to a predicted 46°C.
A fire has been raging across the tinder-dry Monchique area this Friday afternoon with one house already destroyed as 230 fire service staff tackle the ‘complex’ blaze on the hottest day of the year, so far.
Strong afternoon winds have made the task close to impossible as the mountainside bush and eucalyptus catches alight.
In Portugal, the total tax burden - including social security charges – is 44.47%, meaning that June 12th is the day on which workers stop supporting the State and start keeping their earnings.
Portugal has the 15th highest tax burden of the EU’s 28 member countries, according to the The Molinari Economic Institute which has published its study that compares the tax and social security burdens on ‘average workers’ in European Union countries.
The President has signed off the Alojamento Local legislation amendments while pointing out his reservations that many of them may be unworkable.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa gave the green light to the new rules after Parliament voted on and passed the amendments which has resulted from a committee’s report and negotiations between the Socialist Party, the Communists and the Left Bloc.
The Ministry for the Environment has answered Algarve MPs’ questions about the destruction of trees and ecological habitat near Cacela Velha.
Residents alerted ecological groups and the media on July 4, saying that trees and land were being cleared by machinery on ecological land near the village of Cacela Velha, on the Ria Formosa Natural Area’s coastline.
'Furnace Friday,' 'Stultifying Saturday,' call these days what you will - but Thursday's start to an epic heatwave saw several of Portugal's cities among the hottest in the world.
Data from the IPMA weather service showed ten of the 18 district capitals in Portugal hitting 40ºC or more - Riyadh, 42ºC, and Kuwait at 43ºC were topped by Santarém at 45ºC and Évora at 44ºC.
Many of Portugal’s citizens and foreign residents, living in the southern part of the country, were impressed today to receive a SMS message from the National Civil Protection Authority warning of extreme risk of rural fires in the Beja and Faro districts.
Telecommunications regulator, ANACOM, has been working with mobile phone network operators, and radios and TV stations, to get the message across that the extreme heat could turn a small fire into a life-threatening catastrophe.
