A Closer Call with Wildfire

On Tuesday, Megumi was taking the second day of an African dance workshop at Quinta de Mondego a few kilometres from here in Povoa de Midoes. During the lunch break, we'd been to a restaurant with friends and I dropped her back at the Quinta before heading home and then on to our friends Guido & Mariluz. On the way down the dirt track to their place, I saw smoke on the horizon -- not an unusual occurrence just now, as we see at least one fire almost every day.

I realized the smoke was somewhere in the direction of Quinta de Mondego, but didn't think much more of it. But as we sat around talking on the verandah, it was clear the fire was a big one. Here's a photo I took at 5pm:

That's a pretty big cloud of smoke! (Povoa de Midoes is the community on the horizon just to the left of the large tree in the picture; Quinta de Mondego is in the valley beyond.) I was beginning to wonder whether I should call Megumi to say the fire was nearby and possibly coming closer; I could see it was moving quite rapidly from west to east -- in her direction. But she beat me to it; a few minutes later she called to say the dance workshop location was almost surrounded by fire. Things were beginning to sound quite serious, as they had 15 workshop participants plus teachers, musicians, children and others on the property. Megumi was concerned that the firefighters hadn't shown up, but I said we'd already heard sirens and I thought I'd heard a plane or helicopter already. We hung up while I decided what I could do, and agreed to talk again soon.

Next time I called, it was clear that the only route down to Quinta de Mondego (I say "down" because it is on the south bank of the Mondego River) was blocked by the fire. I had a choice of a long drive around to the other shore, or staying put. At the time, the dance group had decided they could use a kayak to begin evacuating people across the river for safety.

Megumi and I talked over the phone quite regularly over the next couple of hours; she was keeping me up to date with firefighting activities and the progress of the fire towards the house/property. In the end, I decided I needed to do something and drove around to Povoa de Midoes. There I had to get through a road block (which I did by saying my partner was down in the fire!), then talked to fire fighters at the point where the dirt track leaves the paved road. They waved me through and said the road was just fine. Which it was, for their huge vehicles!

I found it rather hair-raising, with small trees down across the track, fires still burning, and thick smoke in places. I could feel the heat of the fire as I drove, and was happy to be in a 4WD vehicle, albeit our small Suzuki. I engaged four-wheel drive and raced down the track faster than I would normally attempt it -- which may explain a scratch down one side that Megumi found the following morning!

By the time I arrived, just before 8pm, it was reasonably clear that the house and guesthouse had been saved. In fact, in the end, the fire hardly encroached on the quinta at all. Still, there was a smouldering mass of burnt trees and undergrowth no more than 25 meters from the main house. On the riverbank I met a family from another house who had fled to the river, and still didn't know the fate of their own property. When I told them I'd come down the track, they decided to go back and take a look. I learned later that their house was fine. Lucky them; I saw at least two houses that had been burnt out, as well as a couple of abandoned farmhouses and a number of cars.

Elsewhere, the fire was still raging and there was a continuous noise of helcopters, planes, and sirens.

Here's our local volunteer brigade (the Tabua Bombeiros) in action on the Quinta: