Wildfire prevention and restoration in the Serra da Estrela

Help us prepare our rural areas for the future: preventing wildfires by creating healthier ecosystems and active communities.

Long story short

After the August 2022 wildfires in the Serra da Estrela in Central Portugal, the communities of the villages of Figueiró da Serra and Freixo da Serra founded the association Veredas da Estrela. Together we want to create new models for the future of our villages, improving fire prevention, restoring and maintaining forests that are more resilient to wildfires and droughts, and strengthening the community. We have already started to work but, with your help, we want to go further and hopefully inspire others to do similar things in their own communities!

Reflorestação com o Movimento Estrela Viva em Fevereiro de 2022.

What happened?

On 6th of August 2022 a fire started near Covilhã, south east of the Serra da Estrela Natural Park, devastating an area of 25.000 hectares and making its way to the north of the Natural Park in a period of 11 days, until reaching our area. It was the second huge wildfire, the previous one was in October 2017, that affected our villages in ways and dimensions unknown until that time.

Many of our farmlands and grazing areas, chestnut and olive plantations, and orchards outside of the villages are torched. A recently reforested area with more than 1000 trees planted by 60 people from the villages and volunteers suffered great losses. Many families lost at least parts of their farms, if not all of it.

O vale entre Figueiró e Linhares da Beira, após o incêndio.

After 2017, many of us thought that this kind of fire was an exception, only possible due to the extreme weather conditions during that day and night in October 2017. 2022 proved us wrong and showed us that it’s time to act. While we can’t stop wildfires from happening, we can do more to protect our villages, farms and forests on a local scale, giving our ecosystems time to recover and helping them to become more resilient to the increasing threat of wildfires on the Iberian Peninsula.

What we will do...

We are convinced that wildfires of this dimension have diverse reasons - abandonment of land, forest monocultures, loss of biodiversity, droughts and other severe weather conditions caused by climate change, and so on - and thus have to be tackled on various levels that include reforestation just as much as attracting new residents. With your help, we want to do the first steps on some of these levels. Here’s what we plan to do thanks to your contributions:

• Increase fire prevention by creating a safety zone around the villages, that we maintain free from highly flammable trees and bushes, restoring ecosystems and replanting more fire resilient tree varieties. We need to buy machines and pay tractor work to be able to do this.
• Maintain basic equipment for first interventions during a wildfire. The first 10 to 15 minutes are decisive in fire fighting, and our experience shows that local people are able to do an important job in this initial time frame.
• Buy at least 2 hectars of abandoned land in our parish, in a zone strategically important for fire prevention, and turn it into a community chestnut forest. We want to experiment with different approaches of reforestation, from new plantations to caring for existing older-growth tree-stock, thus finding ways to create more resilient forests that can later be applied in further projects.
• Keep trails in the mountains clear, so that more people can enjoy this area and help us to take care of it, by giving it responsible use and spreading the word.

Uma caminhada por antigas veredas, após o incêndio.

Why it matters...

Throughout Europe rural communities have to deal with similar challenges: the effects of climate change, increasing droughts and loss of population. However, all of us - no matter if we live in a huge city or on the countryside - depend on rural areas for food, water and the air we breathe, but also for natural materials like timber or simply to spend our leisure time. Good and inspiring examples are needed if we want to tackle the problems of these areas so they can keep providing these important services to all of us.

A equipa de uma ação de voluntariado em Outubro de 2022.

Our villages have been hit hard and early by the effects of climate change. However, while demographic change has led to abandonment of rural areas and agricultural lands throughout Europe, Figueiró and Freixo da Serra recently have not only managed to keep a significant part of the younger population, but have also attracted new neighbours - an exception, not only in our region. So maybe this growing community could be an example of how different futures in rural regions are possible? Futures built in participatory ways, based on strong communities taking care of more resilient ecosystems that can be preserved for generations to come. Micro-solutions for globally emerging problems, focusing on the commons, not on individual benefits. What we will be able to do may be small, but we want to share it and inspire others to do something similar, adapted to their own communities.

Durante uma reunião do grupo de trabalho.

If you live in Portugal, protecting our area affects you even more directly: Maybe you like the cheese we produce here, the wine or the beautiful hiking trails. But you surely drink water that comes from these mountains and sometimes even breathe the smoke that comes from its wildfires. Help us to protect this beautiful part of the Natural Park, for us, for you and for generations to come!

About the author

Veredas da Estrela is a non-profit, community based association in the villages of Figueiró da Serra and Freixo da Serra in the North of Portugal’s biggest Natural Park, the Serra da Estrela. After a wildfire devastated almost half of our parish’s lands in August 2022, we started to get organized, joining forces within our very diverse community. A communtiy where young and older people, families, friends, people who were born here and those who moved here recently come together. What all of us have in common is the love for this beautiful mountain area and the commitment to take care of our environment, our villages and our forests.

Votação durante a primeira Assembleia Geral da Associação.

All of us already live, in one way or another, very connected to our lands. Some produce wine or olive oil, some take care of sheep, or just maintain a plentiful veggy garden. Some know how to prune trees, train vines, create ceramics or do wood constructions, bake traditional bread, cook delicious food with local ingredients - and some know every little footpath in the mountains. Community, mutual help and good conversations are very important to us!

Together, with all of our knowledges and skills, we want to create new ideas and ways for the future of our villages, going beyond what we do on our own private lands to protect and rebuild forests that are more resilient to wildfires, to improve fire prevention and to strengthen the community. We organized voluntary actions in the past, and seeing some of the planted trees burn showed us even more how important it is to create and implement a more thorough strategy for resilient and lively villages.

Budget and due dates

Your contributions will be used to...

• buy forestry tools and machines, namely: 3 brushcutters, 3 chainsaws, parts, protective gear & maintenance (5900€)
• buy material for first fire intervention: two water pumps and tanks, hoses, flappers and protective gear (7200€)
• pay for tractor and clear-cutting work to clean priority protection areas (2000€)
• buy an abandoned chestnut forest and transform it into community land by cleaning, planting and pruning (8500€)
• organise voluntary actions on community lands and old hiking trails: transportation, meals, insurances and plants for six voluntary actions (2300€)
• buy hand tools like saws, hoes, buckets, gloves and a wheel barrow for voluntary work (270€);
• The remaining amount (1900€) will be used to pay the 7% PPL crowdfunding platform fees.

When will this happen?

• Voluntary actions are already happening on a regular basis and with your help will continue during the whole year of 2023
• We will clean priority protection areas before summer 2023, making sure they are kept clear during the critical months.
• Fire fighting material for first intervention will also be bought before summer 2023.
• Last but not least, we want to buy the abandoned forest during the year of 2023 to be able to start working on it as quickly as possible and start planting trees in winter 2023/24.

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