In Mainland Portugal, 30.6% was classified in the high and very high rural fire hazard categories. In the Centro and Norte regions, these hazard classes represented more than half of the territory (50.5% and 50.2%, respectively).
In Mainland Portugal, 47.5% of the surface area of protected areas was located in territories classified as having high and very high rural fire hazard areas.
In Mainland Portugal, 1.3% of buildings and 0.8% of conventional family dwellings were in areas of high or very high rural fire hazard. In these areas, the usual residence was the main form of occupancy of family dwellings.
A total of 51,115 people lived in areas of high and very high rural fire hazard, representing 0.5% of the population of Mainland Portugal. These areas showed a higher ageing ratio compared with the Mainland average: 210.0 and 184.6 people aged 65 or over per 100 young people (aged up to 14), respectively. Around 69.3% of the isolated population lived in areas of elevated hazard.
The overlap between the territorial distribution of fire brigades and hospital establishments and the structural rural fire hazard map shows that fire brigades are more widely dispersed and are relatively closer to the areas of elevated hazard, in contrast with the concentration of hospital establishments, which are predominantly located along the coastal region of Mainland Portugal.
