While evacuation orders remain in place for residents near a wildfire in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira, worry now turns toward the six-day fire possibly permanently damaging a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Curral das Freiras (Valley of the Nuns) wildfire began on Aug. 14 and has since burned 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) of forest. Regional Government President Miguel Albuquerque claimed arson started the fire, but specifics have not yet been released.
The fire continues to cause issues for the main island’s inhabitants, according to the Regional Civil Protection Service. Officials evacuated 160 residents on Sunday, but many more on the island continue to suffer from the fire’s smoke.
“In Curral das Freiras, the situation causes some concern, due to the fact that the active front is evolving upwards towards the Areeiro peak and branching downwards approaching a residential area in Fajã dos Cardos,” the service said in a Tuesday morning update on its Facebook page. “[Officials] continue to closely monitor the evolution of fires and reiterate their appeal to the population to avoid traveling to the affected areas, for their safety and to ensure a more effective and safer combat operation for the teams on the ground.”
Regional Civil Protection Service President António Nunes recently told the Madeira Journal that the slope-filled area where the wildfire is spreading is “impossible” to fight with land-based resources and said the only solution may be letting the fire burn-out. Pressure mounts as the fire burns some of the Laurisilva World Heritage Site’s 15,000 hectares (37,065 acres), which makes up 20% of the island. The forest holds exceptional environmental importance as it is largest surviving area of primary laurel forest in the world and holds a wealth of ecological niches and intact ecosystem processes.
“No matter how hard it is, no matter how much it may hurt, this is one of the possibilities,” Nunes said. “When it is not accessible, we have to let the fire progress to an area where it is possible to fight it.”
The president’s statement worried UNESCO Chair in Biodiversity and Conservation for Development Helena Freitas, who told Portugal Pulse that the wildfire may do more than burn the “precious treasure” forest.
“There’s nothing that isn’t affected by the loss of biodiversity,” Freitas said. “I don’t even know if we can talk about a recoverable situation, but it is indeed a very singular heritage. We’re talking about a vascular and exuberant flora, with over a thousand species, of which about 20% are completely exclusive to Madeira Island.”
It’s not the first time a fire has threatened Laurisilva, even recently. Arson also started a fire that partially burned the site last October, and caused widespread outrage due to the delay in fighting the fire. Possibly learning from their mistakes in the past, the nation’s Judicial Police have reportedly been investigating the cause of the current fire “since the beginning.”
“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’,” Madeira Island News reported.
