If around 2004 there were more than 41,500 volunteer firefighters in Portugal, this number dropped to less than 31 thousand in 2022, according to data from Pordata.
As reported in today’s edition of Diário de Notícias, the decline began to be felt in 2008 and reached a minimum figure of close to 26 thousand firefighters in 2021. The following year saw an increase, but António Nunes, president of League of Portuguese Firefighters, tells DN that this growth is “a purely statistical issue”.
On the eve of setting up the Special Rural Fire Fighting Device (DECIR), António Nunes warns of the lack of volunteers — especially in the most critical areas of the country. That is why the leader delivered a dossier on the subject to the Minister of Internal Administration this Monday.
To DN, António Nunes cites the case of Pinhal Interior, where the Pedrógão Grande disaster occurred in 2017. The volunteer fire department in that municipality went from 277 firefighters at the end of the 90s to 148 today. In neighboring municipalities the situation is identical: Castanheira de Pêra went from 166 to 51 firefighters, and Figueiró dos Vinhos from 99 to 75.
Faced with this influx of volunteers, actions have been promoted for children and young people to encourage volunteering in the fire department, but António Nunes regrets that there are no incentives to do so, especially at a time when volunteering options are increasingly vast and often less dangerous.
“Today’s young people are not the same as they were 30 years ago. The options for volunteering today are immense. The only ones that remain the same are firefighters, scouts and eventually the Red Cross. Today we have the environment, ecology, migrations, organizations non-governmental organizations in the fight against hunger, against exclusion. There is now an attractiveness to volunteering for young people with less risk and less responsibility than joining a fire department because, right from the start, they have to complete 300 hours of training. , picketing every week, staying outside. We have to realize that society has also changed”, he tells DN.
As such, António Nunes says it is necessary not only to approve “a Volunteer Firefighter Statute that is appealing and attractive”, but also to offer tax benefits or benefits that really attract young people, such as “a bonus for entering university; the possibility of taking exams on an extraordinary basis when a firefighter is absent due to being on duty”, among others.
The leader also cites examples such as “countries in which volunteers are like the Rotaries or the Lions, where they pay a fee to be firefighters and are recognized for that. Society sees them as an example. Here, we talk about the Peace Soldiers, the Life for Life, but we don’t recognize them.”
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