Bravo phase begins today with nearly five thousand homes since the beginning of the … – Porto Canal

The Bravo phase of fighting forest fires, the second most critical, begins today, at a time when the number of fires has increased fivefold over the same period last year.

For Bravo phase, which runs until June 30, will be mobilized a total of 1,541 teams composed of 6,583 operational and 1,541 cars, according to the Special Device to Combat Forest Fires (DECIF) for 2015.

next month and a half, will still be operating 34 air assets and 70 lookout posts of responsibility of GNR.

The air assets will be available in phases, with operational from Friday, eight, after increasing during the month of June, until they reach 34, to June 20.

The DECIF this year is estimated at about 80 million euros and was reinforced with 17 combat teams forest fires and three teams of permanent intervention in Viana do Castelo district.

The Secretary of State for Internal Affairs, João Pinho de Almeida, will be today at Viana do Castelo district, to sign protocol creation of permanent intervention teams in the municipalities of Monsoon, Ponte da Barca and Ponte de Lima.

The DECIF has the operational objective safety elements involved in fighting forest fires and then reducing burned and the number of reacendimentos area.

The National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC) bet this year also in training, developing 259 operational training actions involving 5,293 operational.

Forest fires grew more than fivefold this year compared to 2014, having recorded 4,320 fires since the beginning of 2015, according to data sent to the Lusa agency by the ANPC.

The ANPC, citing data from the Institute Nature Conservation and Forestry (ICNF), an organization that collects information on both events, said that there were, until May 5, 4320 forest fires, 3,474 more than in the same period last year, when there were 846 fires.

Last year, the total burned area was 19,867 hectares, the second lowest for the past 35 years, and recorded 7,186 fire incidents, the lowest in 25 years.

Before the critical forest fire season will go into effect the Law on the Financing of the fire brigade, which was approved last week in the Council of Ministers, which represents an increase to higher volunteer firefighters to 10 percent .