Heres to a peaceful year....

[Cole]

Hopefully the mindless idiots will stay away and allow the beautiful place which Portugal is to return to all its glory after the fires in the last few years. it is so mindless and unbelivable tht ppl would do this. Well there not ppl there pigs!

[Ellie]

Im sure we all hope & pray the same regarding the fires Cole
But think you will find....from what has been witnessed by residents in Algarve and from evidence gathered there by the authorities..that the people carrying out this sabotage and decimation are living there and not necessary visitors or tourists? That it is being done deliberately for either some macabre satisfaction or for personal gain....
firing the land..clearing it to sell for building on?
But of course..with the countryside like a tinderbox it also only takes one carelessly thrown down cigarette end ?

[frank]

it has little to do with throwing away a cigarette. It all comes down to the portugese people. The ones that have no land set fire to the land of other people.

[Pepito]

It´s really easy and stupid to blame Portuguese but the truth is that most of the fires are caused because of building speculation. You cannot build villas in a forest area because they are protected, but if it burns and there are then no trees you can build as many villas as you want.
Who buy the villas?
These are the ones to be blame because they initiate all this destruction proccess, but most of them are only interested in watching the BBC and playing golf
In Spain they have decided that you cannot build in a burnt area for thirty years so fires have fallen down a lot, they should do the same in portugal and both fires and speculators would little by little dissappear

[frank]

It´s really easy and stupid to blame Portuguese

it is not stupid because it is nothing but the truth! Ask the portugese people!

[Guest]

So what´s the benefit of the people with no lands who burn the lands of other people?Sorry Frank but i don´t see the point.
Obviously most of them are Portuguese but they are just sheer instruments of building corporations and the so. I send you back to the Spanish example: no construction in lands which have previously been burnt and fires have dropped 50 per cent.
Another question is why most of the fires took place in the Algarve and not in the poor Alentejo?

[digger]

an article in last Friday’s Resident says:
“The police are investigating 62 cases of arson this year”
“Arson accounts for one third of all forest fires”
“A typical arsonist is a poorly educated man, motivated by vengeance or personal anger”
“Economic motives are infrequent”

[Jake]

People wanting villas, whether to watch BBC or play golf or whatever, don't very often want these villas half way up the Monchique mountains.

J

[Guest]

you are right Jake its usually the very wealthy who end up having these built to live in.Then have to build even higher walls to keep burlgars out!

[portugeezer]

some people get paid for arson, for example the wood becomes cheaper, others just love to see trees being burned down, 2 years ago one of the persons that set fire on one of the biggest fires in portugal had mental problems, some fires start by accident, like the one in monchique that started because a lorry broke down and started to burn, others have seeing an aeroplane starting the fires in the deep woods, alentejo don't get fires because it hasn't go many woodland, whatever the reason it only takes a litlle spark.....

[portugeezer]

and yes they are all portuguese, GNR last year caught 11 people guilty of arson, but they all claim that they've been paid by someone else to commit arson, one of the main reasons is cheap wood.