The statute, approved at the weekly cabinet meeting, ensures the same percentage of compensation as for damages suffered in the fires of June last year.

Until now, in the case of October’s fires, companies could claim 85% of damages up to €235,000. For damages above that amount, the percentage in compensation fell to 70%.

Luís Lagos, spokesman for the Association of Victims of the Biggest Fire Ever in Portugal (AVIMISP), set up after the October fires, welcomed the decision to bring conditions for compensation into line with those for damages suffered in the June fires.

In a post on social media he described it has “a big victory” for the association and “the first big measure of support for the interior” of the country.

The October fires affected above all the heavily forested interior of central Portugal. They claimed the lives of 49 people, as well as causing damage to thousands of homes and hundreds of companies, on top of the devastation of huge areas of forest and farmland.