Portugal on fire

Portugal is at the moment on fire. Again, for the third summer in a row and every summer being worse than the other, forests of Portugal are burning. Severe drought combined with careless or malicious people is a deadly combination, what comes to fire.

Yesterday morning when we woke up to pack our gear and go from Lisbon to Porto (more precisely I am at Maia), Joana called me to the balcony. There was a big line of smoke, moving slowly and horizontally over Lisbon. Some buildings were on fire, yet as I went to check some ten minutes later, the smoke was already disappearing. Firemen were efficient and tamed the fire quickly.

Some hours later we were already on our way from Lisbon to Porto in a train. I looked out and was happy to see clouds, since it has rained only once or twice in the last 8 months in here. Then, after a while, I realized that the clouds were not of plain water, but they were colored dark with coal from forest fires. Smoke clouds were so intense that light sensors of the train put night lights on in corridors.

Later we were seeing something really nasty-looking towers of smoke rising from multiple locations. Once we were so close that we could even see the flames. I slept most of the way, yet still I saw over twenty individual fires.

Even the sun was colored red and only part of the rays penetrated the heavy veil. There has been quite much of fire fighters moving around with sirens screaming for pain, and as I pointed this out to our Finnish hostess Katja, she said that she was so used to them that she didn't even notice them anymore.

Regardless of the heavy issues, there has also been a lot of enjoyment in these last two days in Porto. We have been going to a Finnish sauna, swimming in both indoors and outdoors swimming pools, having nice blaze of sun (with +40°C), good food and especially our great hostess, who has patiently been driving us around Porto.

Great hug and loads of kisses for her hospitality!