EnviroSociety
Rising from the Ashes: Rural Communities in Portugal’s Fiery Landscapes
Filipa Soares, Luísa Schmidt, & Ana Delicado. Instituto de Ciências
On June 17th, 2017, Ferraria de São João (hereafter Ferraria), a small-sized village in central Portugal remotely located at the top of a hill, was encircled by flames. The two available fire engines, one at each end of the village, were unable to refill with water at some point. There were no helicopters either. The tragedy, as the few residents would come to realise the morning after, was of a regional scale. Left to their own devices, the unprepared local population fought the flames by themselves with what they had at hand: garden hoses, water buckets, branches.
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