The Council of Ministers has approved the expenditure authorisation for the phased acquisition of these vehicles, under the Mais Floresta Program, provided for in the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The funds allow the purchase of 59 Forest Fire Fighting Vehicles (VFCI) and 22 Forest Tactical Tank Vehicles (VTTF), which “represents the largest distribution of vehicles for responding to rural fires since 1980”, according to a note from the Ministry of Internal Administration.

The criteria for selecting the fire brigades that will benefit from these vehicles, proposed by the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority, were previously presented to the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities and the League of Portuguese Firefighters, the Government said.

The MAI states that these are “objective criteria” that guarantee that the vehicles are allocated to fire departments with a real capacity to operate them and guarantee their distribution throughout the country.

The vehicle distribution list includes 14 VFCI and 12 VTTF for the fire brigades in the area of ​​the Northern Regional Emergency and Civil Protection Command; 22 VFCI and 03 VTTF for the Fire Departments of the Center; 06 VFCI and 02 VTTF for Lisbon and Vale do Tejo; 13 VFCI and 05 VTTF for Alentejo and 04 VFCI for Algarve.