Seeking resilience in a forest fire prone country: The June 2017 forest fire in central Portugal

Abstract

On June 17, 2017, a forest fire erupted in central Portugal that would bring severe consequences and greatly challenge the country’s crisis management system. In order to understand why the crisis happened and how it unfolded, this thesis set out to study the transboundary nature of the crisis and the resilience of its crisis management. Based on this, the following research problem was established: “To what extent was the June 2017 forest fire in Portugal a transboundary crisis and to what extent was resilient crisis management achieved?” To find possible answers and formulate conclusions, research has been carried out using an explorative case-study approach. Seeing that collecting primary data was not an option, a choice was made to utilize qualitative document studies. Because of the inherent bias towards applying a single-method for collecting data, it was of great importance to ensure the data’s reliability and validity through careful selection. Empirical data has been retrieved from various documents and reports, including the official independent investigation report requested by the Portuguese government, as well as reports from the EU. The theoretical parameters which gave focus to the research has been described and outlined in chapter 2. The theoretical framework presented in this chapter aimed to enhance the understanding of how different aspects pertaining to the crisis itself could influence the degree to which resilient crisis management is achieved. These aspects include crisis typologies, crisis phases, crisis management and crisis ‘transboundedness’. Thereafter the challenges of transboundary crisis management were presented, with an emphasis on communication and coordination. Lastly, the theme of resilience is visited, with the theoretical framework accounting for both proactive and reactive resilience, as well as offering a set of factors which may influence the degree to which resilient crisis management can be achieved. Key findings from the study suggests that the June 2017 forest fire in central Portugal was very much so a transboundary crisis. This conclusion was reached by assessing the transboundary dimensions which were crossed during the crisis. Although the fire started in one municipality in central Portugal, by the time it was put out four days later it had affected seven municipalities, damaged dozens of buildings, and taken 65 lives in the process. The crisis called for coordination and cooperation across various response entities, both on local, regional, national and international levels, thereby also adding transboundary elements to the crisis management. In assessing the proactive and reactive resilience measures, key findings show a crisis management system which had the right intentions but lacked the political power to ensure that the crisis management system was prepared, thereby hampering response efforts once the crisis had manifested.