The most affected areas are located in the Aveiro, Tâmega e Sousa and Viseu Dão Lafões regions, which total 47,376 hectares of burned area, 75% of the burned area across the entire national territory.

According to the Copernicus system, which uses satellite images with spatial resolution of 20 metres and 250 metres, the total area burned since Sunday amounts to 62,646 hectares.

In the Aveiro Region, which includes the areas between Oliveira de Azeméis, Albergaria-a-Velha and Águeda, the Copernicus system has recorded 19,854 hectares of burnt area since Monday.


With 16,872 hectares of burnt area, also since Monday, Viseu Dão Lafões is next among the most affected areas, followed by Tâmega e Sousa, where 10,650 hectares have already burned since Sunday.

In the Ave sub-region, 6,626 hectares have burned, with 4,005 hectares of burnt area in Alto Tâmega and 3,341 hectares in the Porto Metropolitan Area.

According to the Copernicus system, the area burned in mainland Portugal this year has now totalled 83,476 hectares, consumed by 147 significant fires recorded by the European Earth observation system.

At least seven people have died and 40 have been injured, two seriously, in the fires that have been raging since Sunday in the North and Centre of the country, such as Oliveira de Azeméis, Albergaria-a-Velha and Sever do Vouga, in the district of Aveiro. They have destroyed dozens of houses and forced the closure of roads and motorways, such as the A1, A25 and A13.

The most recent victims are three firefighters who died today in an accident while on their way to a fire in Tábua, in the district of Coimbra.

Today, at 3:30 pm, the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) had registered 173 incidents, involving more than 3,800 firefighters, supported by 1,049 land vehicles and 40 air vehicles.

Since Sunday, the flames have reached the districts of Porto, in Gondomar; Braga, in Cabeceiras de Basto; Vila Real, in Vila Pouca de Aguiar; Viseu, in Penalva do Castelo and Nelas (with six injured) and Castelo Branco, in Louriçal do Campo. However, it was the district of Aveiro, with 10 thousand hectares already burned, that was the centre of the largest fire outbreaks, in Oliveira de Azeméis, Sever do Vouga, Albergaria-a-Velha and Águeda.

The Government extended the alert status due to the risk of fires until Thursday, in light of the weather forecasts, and announced the creation of a multidisciplinary team to deal with the consequences of the fires of the last few days, coordinated by the Deputy Minister and Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, who held his first meeting in Aveiro today.