Last night the fire retured to Serra de Agua, coming close to properties that can be seen in a friends video below.
The fire in the Serra de Água mountains, in the Madeiran municipality of Ribeira Brava, has been extinguished and the people evacuated on Sunday have been returning to their homes, said today the president of the local parish council.
“The fire is out, there are no active fronts that can be seen and the situation is now under surveillance,” Albertina Ferreira told Lusa news agency early this morning.
The mayor added that they are now waiting to “start the cleaning process and perhaps the creation of a crisis cabinet”, and are awaiting instructions.
“People were returning home as they were able, but some have already returned,” he said.
The rural fire broke out on Wednesday in the mountains of Ribeira Brava. The following day, it spread to the neighboring municipality of Câmara de Lobos, and, over the weekend, to the municipality of Ponta do Sol, on the Paul da Serra plateau. In this municipality, it is also active today in the Lombada area.
Due to the seriousness of the situation, and according to the most recent report by the Regional Government of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, at the end of Sunday afternoon, a total of 160 people had to be removed from their homes as a precaution and transported to public facilities, to avoid inhaling the fumes.
At 7pm on Sunday, 195 firefighters were fighting the fire in the affected municipalities, supported by 38 vehicles and the air resources available in the region, including the 76 members of the joint force of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority who arrived in Madeira in the early hours of Sunday.
15 operators provided by the Autonomous Region of the Azores also arrived in the region in the early hours of today.