The United States and Portugal have signed a memorandum of understanding to prevent and contain wildfires
On April 28ththsigned the United States and Portugal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Wildfire Prevention and Response – a major milestone in US-Portugal cooperation on wildfire management. The MoU was signed by US Ambassador Randi Charrno Levine and AGIF President Tiago Oliveira.
Following similar, highly successful agreements between the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico, this MoU will help prevent and combat the devastating wildfires that afflict both the United States and Portugal each year. It will enable faster sharing of resources to fight wildfires, ranging from joint firefighting training, to research on fire prevention and risk reduction, to post-fire soil and water remediation.
The United States is already assisting the Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management (AGIF) in developing a training strategy for wildfire-focused command and control operations. In October 2022, US Forest Service experts from a “Burned Area Emergency Response Team” spent two weeks with officials from the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) in the Serra da Estrela to remediate over 303,000 square kilometers of fire-damaged land and restore drinking water sources for World War II .5 million people in Portugal.
Under this MOU, other companies involved in wildfires from the United States and Portugal will be able to work directly together and share best practices and the latest technical and scientific knowledge. Ultimately, the two countries hope to further strengthen their bilateral cooperation on scientific and humanitarian affairs, as well as mutual engagement in fighting forest fires and saving lives and livelihoods.
