Rural areas are patrolled every day from 9am to 9pm
Making sure any wildfires that break out are swiftly dealt with is the main goal of the wildfire surveillance teams which are already at work in Loulé.
Local mayor Vítor Aleixo held a special ceremony on May 3 to welcome the teams and offer them some words of encouragement for a job which is “difficult” but will “certainly be fundamental to protect populations, assets and natural municipal heritage.”
Since Monday (May 15), the teams have been hard at work patrolling the municipality’s rural areas to spot any hints of a wildfire.
The patrols will take place every day from 9am to 9pm and are carried out by a municipal team of “forest intervention” and Sapadores firefighters, aided by GNR police agents on horseback and Portuguese military staff as well as local hunting associations and the populations of small inland villages.
According to the Municipal Plan of Defence Against Fires of Loulé, the risk of wildfires in the municipality is considered high due to the extensive areas of forest, which occupy around 65% of the borough’s total area.
