Sunday has seen the inglorious fight against raging wildfires in the interior of the north and centre continue with avengeance.

In spite of the ‘good news’ that four Canadair planes provided support today in Sabugal since Friday and “helped prevent the flames from reaching the village of Rapoula do Côa, which was surrounded”, there are now reports that the village of Seixo do Côa is being assailed by flames, almost reaching the church.

CMTV has been reporting how so many village communities are the only combat force that face these fires, as firefighters quite literally cannot be everywhere.

The fire in Guarda is also bearing down as we write this text on the village of Pega – high winds sending flames in all directions.

As a report by Lusa explained earlier today: “Fires continue to ravage the border municipality of the Guarda district, but at opposite ends, which also makes responding to the fires difficult.

“We have to divide the available resources, because the fire is burning from one end of our municipality to the other, which prevents the operational staff from taking decisive action,” mayor Vítor Proença added.

There has also been a threat looming over a local fuel station, in Cerdeira do Côa, but “firefighters and locals managed to prevent the worst”.

All in all, the situation remains desperately complicated. Activating the European Civil Protection Mechanism hasn’t, for the time being, changed anything – and while firefighters concentrate on ‘monster fires’, others are breaking out. Talking at midday today, national Civil Protection Commander Mário Silvestre described 28 ‘new incidents’ since 00.00 hours today – 22 of which began between 00.00 hours and 8am (in other words, at times when fires should not be ‘breaking out spontaneously’, although clearly there is now the problem of burning debris, particularly from trees, being sent some distances in the high winds).

Portugal’s ‘state of alert’ remains current until midnight tonight. Meteorologists have said that the intense heat of the last three weeks should be receding, but today’s temperatures have shown little sign of this.

It is possible that the state of alert may end up being extended (again): the ministry of Interior Administration has sent out a message that the Minister will be talking to the country at 7pm this evening.

Update: Minister extends situation of alert, and everything that this implies, until 00.00 hours on Tuesday.