One of the crew members of the Portuguese firefighting device crashed this Saturday while participating in the extinction of a cross-border forest fire in the Gerês-Xurês Park has died. The other crew member of the aircraft, seriously injured , is being transferred with several multiple injuries to a Portuguese hospital, the Xunta de Galicia reported. To the scene of the accident, which is still unknown in which part of the border it occurred, a medicalized helicopter from the Xunta has traveled.

Portuguese Civil Protection sources have confirmed that the accident has occurred in a mountainous area of the Baixa Limia-Serra do Gerês-Xurés Natural Park, where troops from Portugal and Spain are fighting a fire that started last morning and that affects the territory of both countries.

According to the Government Delegation in Galicia, the damaged plane is a CL-215 piston from the civil company Babcock, based in Matacán (Salamanca). The Government of Portugal has rented three of these devices, which are operated by Proteção Civil, two active and one in reserve at the Castelo Branco airport, in the center of the Portuguese country.

This fire is one of those that has affected this natural park since Friday, an area of ​​approximately 100,000 hectares located in the northern region of Portugal and in the Spanish community of Galicia and declared a biosphere reserve.

Sources from the Viana do Castelo District Relief Operations Command, the district to which the Portuguese area belongs, specified that on the ground there are more than 80 firefighters , 24 ground extinction vehicles and eight aircraft , of which five are Portuguese and three are Spanish. , and one of them is the one who has suffered the accident.

At the moment, both the 112 Galicia and the Department of Rural Affairs collect information about what happened. However, through social networks a worker of the device has spread a video in which the plane can be seen in a rocky area on a slope.

The fire started after 5:00 am local Portuguese time (6:00 am, Spanish peninsular time) and affects the areas of Lindoso (Portugal) and Lobios (Spain). It has an active front divided into two sectors and the orography, since it is a mountainous area, is making it difficult for Civil Protection teams to access the terrain. According to the Viana do Castelo command, there are no populations in danger .

The Gerês-Xurés Park, with an approximate area of ​​100,000 hectares, is located in the Northern region of Portugal and in the Spanish community of Galicia, and has been declared a biosphere reserve. Portugal is until this Sunday in a situation of alert for the risk of fire, declared by the Portuguese Government due to the meteorological forecasts for this weekend.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Galicia
  • Portugal
  • Fires
  • Spain

Interview Mario Garcés: "There is no possibility of agreeing on the Budgets"

Galician Elections 2020A breakdown in his plane prevents Pedro Sánchez from attending the closing of the electoral campaign in Galicia

Champions League 2020UEFA confirms that Barcelona-Naples will be played at Camp Nou despite outbreaks

See links of interest

  • News
  • Translator
  • Programming
  • Calendar
  • Horoscope
  • Classification
  • League calendar
  • Films
  • Topics
  • Deportivo de La Coruña - Fuenlabrada
  • Manchester City - Real Madrid, live
  • Juventus - Lyon