Marco Lobato, member of the Regional Civil Protection Service reinforces the appeal to Madeirans to be careful with the hot weather these days.
Marco Lobato, member of the Board of Directors of the Regional Civil Protection Service, IP-RAM, was on the ‘Bola no Ar’ program today, broadcast by TSF-Madeira, where he gave an account of what is being done to prevent the risk of forest fire given the yellow and orange warnings for hot weather since yesterday and for the next few days.
“Just yesterday we released the operational technical statement for the media, also guidelines for the general population, what should be done and what type of behavior should be avoided during this season, during these times and, essentially, they should be avoided throughout the summer season, but essentially when we are facing alert states or IPMA warnings, which may show the spread or wide spread of fires”, he warned.
“It is essential that people who travel to our mountains avoid making bonfires”, he warned. For example, if you have to have picnics that bring already prepared food from home, that avoid making bonfires in the mountains as much as possible, you have to think that, sometimes, a simple spark is enough to lose control of a whole situation and spread a big fire, avoid really the use of tobacco from cigarettes and throwing cigarettes”.
He adds: “Many times, they are not even in the mountains, because people go in their vehicles, smoke and take the cigarette butt out the window. And what sometimes seems to be a harmless thing, but which is not harmless at all, because it could, effectively, spread a fire, because, it is enough for that butt to fall in an area where there is some drier bush, and that is enough
Other situations pointed out by Marco Lobato are the burnings, for which he warns people who work in agriculture, “who have their land to clear, they should avoid burning as much as possible” and “when they do burn, they have to, effectively, inform and ask licenses to city councils. It is important to hit this key, which is an awareness key, in which we have been trying to reach the population, more and more we manage to reach, but there is still a fringe of this population that does not adhere to these issues, which is avoid burning, if they have to burn to clear their land, burn the leftovers, let them do it with their lives of licenses”, he asked.