The fire that broke out on 17 June, 2017 in Pedrógão Grande, in the district of Leiria, and which spread to neighbouring municipalities, caused 66 deaths and more than 250 injuries, destroyed 500 homes and 50 businesses.

The President of the Assembly of the Republic recalled that, "along with a trail of destruction whose scars are still visible today, dozens of citizens lost their lives, some of them children".

Victims Association still worried

"Little or very little has changed according to the expectations that have been created. There were so many promises and we look at the territory and the forest and everything remains the same," the president of the Pedrógão Grande Fire Victims Association (AVIPG), Dina Duarte told Lusa.

"It's the forest area that worries me. That's where the great conflict of interests of the owners in keeping the profit and of companies linked to the economy of the forest," she stressed.

However, Dina Duarte maintains the expectation that there will still be a change in the territory's forest, dominated by eucalyptus monoculture.

"It will not make sense that everything remains the same and nothing is done in central terms or in local terms”, she added.

The president of AVIPG also highlighted that, after four years, there are still countryside areas "where no one can make a call to anyone and places where people cannot even call 112 if they face an emergency".