Fire at Lisbon Airport: 200 cars burned in parking garage blaze
7:37 AM EDT, August 17, 2024
A fire broke out on Friday evening near Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon, destroying a multi-level parking garage with hundreds of cars and a warehouse.
Portuguese civil defense commander Hugo Santos reported the scale of the damage. According to Santos, over 200 cars burned down. He clarified that most of these cars belonged to passengers using the airport.
Fire in Lisbon. Firefighters fought the blaze for many hours
Firefighters battled the blaze for many hours and 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 fight against them was hindered by the country's heatwave, which exceeded 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
One of the largest fires that firefighters had to contend with was the one that had 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.
