The Judicial Police (PJ) has been investigating “since the beginning” the origin of the forest fire that broke out on Wednesday in the municipality of Ribeira Brava, in Madeira, and spread to other municipalities, a police source said today.
“We are investigating and have been doing so since the beginning, when we went to the site,” he told Lusa.
Declining to provide details, the source only indicated that the Madeira Criminal Investigation Department “is carrying out the investigation procedures that are normal in this type of situation”.
Two fronts remain active today, in the municipalities of Ponta do Sol and Ribeira Brava, which mobilize nearly two hundred operatives (including those from the mainland and the Azores) and a few dozen vehicles, in addition to the archipelago’s air resources.
The president of the Regional Government, Miguel Albuquerque, says it was arson, but the causes have not yet been released.