Lisbon, June 26, 2026 (Lusa) - The Ministry of Agriculture has published a temporary, exceptional scheme to create areas to facilitate the storage of timber destroyed during the storms at the start of the year, in view of the approaching fire season.
A decree published in the Diário da República on Friday highlights that the weather events triggered by Storm Kristin caused “extensive damage and loss to various infrastructure, homes and natural and cultural heritage”, including the “destruction of extensive areas of vegetation cover, which necessitates the implementation of forest management operations, namely the felling, removal and urgent transport of the affected timber”.
Accordingly, as part of an amendment to the exceptional and temporary scheme aimed at the reconstruction and rehabilitation of heritage and infrastructure in the municipalities affected by Storm Kristin, temporary timber storage areas are now being established.
Five months after the storms, the Ministry of Agriculture explains that these sites are intended to speed up forest management operations, mitigate market disruptions and “control phytosanitary risks before the critical fire season”.
The sites may be covered or open-air, reserved for the “temporary storage of timber and forest biomass resulting from forest management operations” related to the storms.
The costs of establishing these temporary timber storage areas are fully covered by private investment and funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan, it adds.
Temporary timber storage areas may be established 10 days after notification to the local council and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) using a specific form.
They must comply with the minimum safety distances applicable to loading points and have the minimum first-response fire-fighting equipment available during the periods when work is carried out, whenever the rural fire danger level is ‘very high’ or ‘maximum’.
The ICNF is responsible for monitoring compliance with safety requirements and other legal obligations.
For the establishment of temporary timber storage areas, local councils may grant temporary and exclusive use of municipal public property and make municipal private property available free of charge on a temporary basis.
Upon the closure of the temporary timber storage areas, the owners or persons in charge must remove all stored woody material and dismantle all temporary physical structures installed, as well as notify the relevant local council and the ICNF “at least five days in advance”.
This exceptional and temporary period ends on 30 June 2027.
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