Catastrophic fire near Coimbra (my home city)

I read a small part about this earlier this a.m. Truly a sad and tragic situation.

I've been reading about this. Terrible situation.

Thank you Sturgis, I am at a loss of words right now. I don't know what else to say...Coimbra is under a dark cloud of smoke this morning. New lergislation will have to be passed in the parlament to clean the forest around small villages with heavy fines for those who do not comply. Something has to be done to prevent the absolutely stupid mindless situation we found ourselves in. Eucaliptos tree plantation needs to be probited once and for all!

Prime Minister car goes through cut road in the fire area.


President of the Portuguese Republic visible emotional with the unfolding of the events!

Fire keeps crossing cut roads...

Fire update now with translation.

Yeah, Eucs can be quite a problem, not only for their ability to flame up, but for the massing of debris around the bases of the trees... which can be a big problem.
Much sympathy from me to all of you going through this.

My symphaty - it is so sad with these fires.

I was horrified to hear about this last night and have been following the news on it. Several of my IRL friends have family there - I didn't realize you were there/near there.

As I listened to the reports, my very early memories of spoken Portuguese came back a bit. The only upside (to me) was realizing I had not lost that completely.

Fil, report when you get time or the energy...

Not to punch myself into this, but we have had some horrendo fires in California. I've not been on the frontline, but given my job, studied fire and what to do for property protection over a bunch of years.

Closest I came was to a client's place - she called me horrified. She had a large property above the Malibu coast; the fire debris covered almost every place I could see.. a lot of land. I was scared enough to go to her house, since the roads had no railings next to sheer cliffs, but once I got there, I was dumbfounded.

Her house had been saved, not, that I remember, from firefighters, but from her very large planting of 'Sister Agnes' Nerium oleander, where the fire stopped - that is the most vigorous oleander. That oleander was already fully grown there..
I'm remembering now, she was a writer about manatees who was in italian classes with me, thus the call re what to do..

Years earlier, when I went to a local college before university, the Bel Air Fire showed up. It came about a block from Sunset Boulevard, which was 3 blocks from our (my parents') house. Given that area's combination of fragility and wealth (no, not us, long story re wealth), the LA Fire Department, and probably other fire departments, were out there fast.


Scary ****. I still remember a lecture and booklet by a fire department guy named Klaus Radke.