Castelo Branco

Portugal is on high alert for blazes, and more than 500 firefighters are scrambling to put out flames that started on Friday afternoon in a forest area in the central Castelo Branco district.

For Maria Carmo, a 43-year-old university lecturer from the village of Barco, in the central district of Castelo Branco, such lack of engagement reveals the alienation that most urban or coastal-dwelling Portuguese feel towards the country’s rural heartlands.

Her campaign group in Castelo Branco has already split, with half its members now open to the possibility of an open-pit lithium mine above her village.

Oliveira constructs an enigmatic, unbalanced triangle consisting of a beautiful and innocent English woman, Francisca “Fanny” Owen, a louche and handsome Portuguese aristocrat, José Augusto, and the cynical writer Camilo Castelo Branco.

Luis Belo Costa, commander from the Castelo Branco district, where the affected municipalities are located, told a news conference on Sunday morning that several houses were at risk as the fire raged near isolated villages.