Even we get rain

Even here is Central Portugal we get rain. Now if you are in the UK ok you have just had a bit of rain and it does seem bad but we get rain as well. This week we had rain but nobody complained about the rain we had. It was badly needed to dampen the forests and it helped in fire avoidance but the sun will soon dry up the ground but in the short term it has helped

Why well it's like this we have had some fires but not just a few fires these fires that i was able to see the result of whole valleys where burnt. But what i saw as i was going to Coimbra was Helicopters flying away from a river after dropping the huge buckets into the water to use to help put the fires out.

This is  the type of helicopter used to get the forest fires under control. These helicopter pilots drop down to rivers and sometime water towers to fill the buckets to drop the water where it's needed most. from what i saw this week there where many places that the firefighters couldn't get to but  the helicopters can.

This picture is not one from Portugal but it is shown to let you see the type of equipment used in fire fighting in Portugal.










Here at Vale Boa there is a water tower and should the valuable water contained in the tower be needed then i am sure that the pilots would soon drop from the sky to fill there buckets in the water should there be a fire close by and there was a need for water quickly they would take it.

A long time ago i saw work being done at the side of a river not far from where i live. I asked a friend who was with me at the time what was going on in the river. It seems that the year before there had been flooding along this stretch of river. What was going on was the river was being made wider so that when the rains come the water will flow better without flooding.

Over the last few years that i lived in the UK during the rains many rivers flooded. Why when they know that the rains will bring flooding don't the powers to be have the rivers made wider. If they can do it in Portugal then why can't they do the same in the UK.