Blaze at Lisbon Airport car park destroys over 200 vehicles
A fire broke out on Friday evening near Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon. The blaze destroyed a multi-level car park with hundreds of cars and a warehouse.
17 Aug 2024 | updated: 17 August 2024 11:01
The Portuguese civil defence commander Hugo Santos reported the scale of the damage. According to his statement, over 200 cars were burned. Santos clarified that most of them belonged to passengers using the airport.
Fire in Lisbon. Firefighters fought the blaze for many hours
Firefighters who battled the blaze for many hours reported after midnight on Saturday that they had managed to get the situation under control. However, they noted that their efforts were hampered for several hours due to numerous car fuel explosions. An additional challenge was the high air temperature in the parking area.
Commander Santos had earlier predicted that the fire would be entirely extinguished by Saturday morning. He also indicated that shortly before midnight, the capital police began an investigation to determine the cause of the fire.
According to preliminary findings by public television RTP, citing witness accounts, the fire started in one of the electric cars and quickly spread to nearby vehicles.
On Friday, firefighters in Portugal had to contend with several large forest and agricultural land fires. The country's heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, hindered their efforts.
One of the largest fires that firefighters had to contend with was the one that has been ravaging forests on the Atlantic island of Madeira since Wednesday. On Friday evening, the evacuation of homes was ordered as the fire approached the town of Curral das Freiras.
