Peneda-Gerês fire: blaze near Montalegre started at three separate points, burned around 200 hectares
A fire in Peneda-Gerês National Park at Xertelo, Montalegre, started at three separate ignition points and burned around 200 hectares of biosphere reserve.
The fire that hit Peneda-Gerês National Park at Xertelo, in the municipality of Montalegre, burned through around 200 hectares before being brought under control late on Tuesday. What worries the authorities is not just the scorched area — it’s how the fire was born.
How did the Peneda-Gerês fire start?
The flames broke out at around 9pm on Monday at three separate points, almost simultaneously — a pattern that raises suspicions about the origin and is being examined by the authorities. The fire ran mostly through scrubland, but inside Portugal’s only national park, in an area classified as a UNESCO biosphere reserve, in the district of Vila Real.
At the peak of the fight, more than a hundred firefighters were on the ground, backed by nine aircraft. By Tuesday evening the Civil Protection authority declared the fire in resolution, with dozens of firefighters and vehicles staying on for active surveillance — at this time of year, a poorly watched mop-up is halfway to a flare-up. Live incident updates are posted on the Civil Protection website.
Why is this area so sensitive?
Peneda-Gerês shelters habitats and species found nowhere else in Portugal, and every hectare of biosphere reserve that burns takes decades to recover. The episode comes only weeks after the country officially entered wildfire season on national alert — a reminder that in summer, the Gerês is heritage to protect, not scenery to take for granted.
Image: manjerix / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
