Rising Wildfire Costs Leave Portugal's Volunteer Firefighters €20M Short

Portugal’s volunteer fire brigades—so often the last line of defence when eucalyptus groves ignite—are bracing for another expensive summer. Officials now concede that the 2025 wildfire season will saddle local associations with more than €20 M in unforeseen bills, eclipsing last year’s record and deepening an already persistent cash-flow crisis.

Raging summer turns balance sheet red

The peninsula’s hottest July in 8 decades, coupled with winds funnelled up from North Africa, has stretched rural fire incidents well beyond the usual peak. That meteorological cocktail forced crews to remain deployed for weeks rather than days, compounding costs for overtime, fuel and field rations. In many interior districts, command posts ran generators around the clock as power lines failed, adding yet another line item to expense sheets already swollen by inflated diesel prices.

Where the extra €20 M is going

Inside the ledgers, three headings dominate. First is fuel, with pump prices hovering near €2 per litre, devouring nearly a quarter of all extraordinary spending. Second comes vehicle repairs: at least 37 fire engines suffered chassis or pump damage after navigating unpaved mountain tracks. Finally, food and hydration for crews—now budgeted at €14.50 per firefighter per shift—has soared in tandem with general inflation. The government’s decision to raise the daily allowance from €67.30 to €75—celebrated as the biggest bump in 10 years—kept volunteer wallets afloat but also nudged overall costs higher.

Government’s stopgap measures

Facing accusations of leaving associations “in permanent asphyxia”, Lisbon fast-tracked a support line that lets each humanitarian association request up to €50 000 in advance payments without the usual mountain of paperwork. Roughly €1 M has already reached bank accounts, according to Civil Protection Secretary Rui Rocha. A separate €2 M equipment upgrade fund—earmarked for hoses, PPE and digital radios—was also unveiled, though presidents of several district federations warn the money “barely covers the backlog”.

Volunteer ranks feeling the heat

Higher stipends have softened the blow for frontline crews, yet station chiefs say recruiting newcomers remains uphill work. A typical 14-day wildfire deployment now requires volunteers to burn holiday leave from primary jobs, and private employers are not always sympathetic. The League of Portuguese Firefighters (LBP) argues that an ageing roster—average age is nudging 44—makes the system fragile; younger recruits prefer paid civil-protection contracts or safer municipal roles. Meanwhile, rising premiums for personal-accident insurance further erode association budgets, limiting their ability to invest in modern breathing apparatus or thermal cameras that could make the work safer.

Longer-term funding puzzle

The draft 2025 State Budget sets aside €34.7 M for volunteer corps, only €2.1 M more than in 2024. The LBP counters that an €83.6 M allocation is necessary to end what it calls a decade of structural underfunding—roughly €33 M cumulatively since 2015. Economists note that, when adjusted for inflation, the parliamentary figure would still trail 2019 spending power. Ministers, for their part, defend the current formula, arguing that any larger jump must await the results of an upcoming audit of Civil Protection’s financing model.

What comes next before the next fire season

With winter rains still weeks away, municipal mayors are lobbying Brussels for an extraordinary EU Solidarity Fund drawdown, citing cross-border smoke plumes that briefly suspended flights in Galicia and Asturias. In parallel, the Interior Ministry is drafting rules to professionalise Initial Attack Teams in high-risk parishes—an idea borrowed from Catalonia that could pivot part of the volunteer force into paid rapid-response units. Whether such reforms arrive in time for 2026 remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: without a lasting fix, the men and women in orange will be forced to juggle bake-sales, bingo nights and emergency lines of credit just to keep the sirens blaring when the hills light up again.