“The situation is under control, during the night people will remain on the ground and with lots of reinforcements, in terms of Civil Protection, but also with the arrival of soldiers that will patrol the mountain range,” Mayor Carlos Carreiras told Lusa.

He added that clean up work after the fire, which started at 10.50 pm on Saturday in the Peninha area of the mountains, had also begun on Sunday afternoon

“Our concern is also focused on the logistics of reforestation of the mountains, making use of our genetic forestry bank, which has 5,000 trees and bushes of native species," he noted.

“This fire did not in fact begin in the Cascais council area and was not propagated in the most critical areas, which were the densest part of the forest, because that has been worked on and put in order, and that has led to good results,” noted Carreiras.

The fire began on Saturday in the Peninha area in the Sintra mountain range west of the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, and spread to the Cascais area. It was under control by 10.45 am on Sunday.

The fire lightly injured 21 people including 10 firefighters and one civilian that were taken to hospital and 10 firefighters treated at the location and who returned to fighting the fire.