Portugal has already recorded more than 7,000 hectares (ha) of burnt area due to forest fires in 2023, according to provisional data from the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) released this Friday, April 14
The data from ICNF are counted from January 1st until last Tuesday and indicate that from a total of 1,971 rural fires resulted 7,366 ha of burnt area, between stands (1,826 ha), bushes (5,454 ha) and agriculture (86 ha).
Comparing this year's figures with those of the last ten years, ICNF points out that there were more than 12% more rural fires and more than 48% more burnt area than the annual average for the period.
"The year 2023 presents, until April 11, the 5th highest value in number of fires and the 5th highest value of burnt area, since 2013," reads the report.
In just 11 days of April, 43 ha have already burned more than in the whole of the same month last year.