Almeida Reis

Captain Almeida Reis – Head of pilots and jointly in charge of the air activities of INAER (1)

ECO123: What is needed for there to be no fires in Portugal?

As far as firefighting is concerned, it is completely in our interests that the fires are reduced as much as possible, the industry has no interest in fires per se. It is a dangerous situation, the danger increases and other factors come in that are not favourable.

In personal terms, I think that the question about not having fires will always be linked to issues of prevention or behaviour, not material issues. The more material resources are made available, even if the fires are not avoided completely, the better the success rate will be in the air support sector, in preventing or avoiding major fires. From the point of view of the general population, there is a cultural problem, as the different generations have not yet become accustomed to respecting a series of principles and recognising a series of dangers, and so contribute in this way to increasing the number of fires. It is a problem that depends on many factors, which is connected with our chronic lack of planning.

In the air support sector, the resources are being used well and even though there are occasional errors, there is a good culture and a good response in terms of resources, with great success even at peak times. But there is a need to improve the immediate attack substantially.