The numbers available on the website of the “Safe Village” and “Safe People” Programs, of the Ministry of Internal Administration and the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), indicate that they joined this program, created after the 2017 fires, a total of 2,242 clusters, of which 2,093 have a local security officer and 919 evacuation plans.

The village security officer's mission is to transmit warnings to the population, organise the evacuation of the village if necessary and carry out awareness-raising activities among the population.

ANEPC is holding a ceremony today (29 January) in Guarda to hand over signs relating to evacuation routes and places of shelter and refuge in the event of a rural fire.

According to Civil Protection, this signage, financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and included within the framework of the “Safe Village” and “Safe People” Programmes, aims to increase the resilience of communities and the safety of people and goods.

The sets of signs to be distributed are made up of place of refuge and place of shelter signs, as well as direction signs, in order to provide the clusters with signs identifying the evacuation routes and places of shelter and refuge to be used in case of rural fire, says ANPEC.

According to data from the “Safe Village” and “Safe People” Programs, the district with the largest number of villages with this rural fire protection program is Guarda, with a total of 503 villages, followed by Bragança (257), Viseu (234) and Santarém (202).

Of the 2,242 villages that joined the “Safe Village” program, 1,412 have shelters and 1,389 have refuges for populations to protect themselves from rural fires.

Created in 2018, the “Safe Village” and “Safe People” programmes aim to create strategies to protect population clusters in the event of rural fires and encourage population participation.

This program is implemented on the ground by ANEPC, councils and parish councils.