According to the councillor Catarina Silva, the Pombal City Council intends to donate around €500 thousand to parish councils and unions to clean the fuel management lanes. As the councillor explains “[The cleanup] was designed with the intention of slowing down the fire - by not having trees and having clean land, there is a greater chance of it slowing down”.

As Catarina Silva explained “We delegate this competence through inter-administrative contracts and the transition of the respective budget for cleaning and cutting”, adding that the process should “be completed by the end of the first semester, as quickly as possible”, even if “sometimes, this is not always possible, especially because many of the councils also subcontract this service and are dependent on the availability of third parties”.

The councillor has stated that the municipality designates every year which are the priority fuel management lanes, measuring ten meters and running parallel to the municipal road network, for the corresponding cleaning. Therefore, about 160 kilometres of the road network are covered by the €489,750 cleaning budget for this year, which is 326.5 hectares higher than the €390,000 investment for 2023. As Catarina Silva added, “We vary the tracks too. Not every year are the same roads subject to this cleaning”.

According to councillor the cleanup has a “dual function” as further advantages have been noticed. As she explained, “In summer, during forest fires, it allows a slower fire rate and in winter the trees fall”. The last significant fires in the municipality were in July 2022, when 20 percent of the 54 square kilometres which make up Abiul parish was destroyed.