Between 15 and 19 September 2024, Portugal faced an Alert Situation due to extremely adverse weather conditions, marked by high temperatures and dry climate, which increased the risk, and the number, of rural fires in mainland Portugal. In this period, 1615 ignitions were registered on the website Fogos.pt, which obtains its data through the API of the National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection (ANEPC), with a peak of 451 ignitions on 17 October 2024.
The total burnt area, derived from these fires, is not yet official but will exceed 100,000ha.
In response, on September 16, VOST Portugal activated its emergency operation to monitor and communicate critical information to the population.
During this activation, VOST's priority was to collect and validate data on mobility restrictions and fire evolution, disseminating useful information after being validated and verified. The first relevant communication was published on social networks at 08:36 on the 16th, informing the court of the A1, one of the main traffic routes in the country.
Over five days, more than 60 updates were shared, with a special focus on Telegram and X/Twitter. The communication also included summaries of ANEPC press conferences. This work aimed to provide real-time information, in an accessible way, for those who needed to know about mobility restrictions and the state of the situation.
Statistics and Scope
– VOST Portugal on Facebook: 85,763 users reached.
– Fogos.pt on Facebook: 677,577 users reached.
– VOST Portugal on Instagram: Reach of 21,153 users.
– X/Twitter (VOST Portugal): 1.2 million users reached, with 2,400 new followers.
– Telegram: Growth of 5% the followers of the VOST Portugal channel and 23% on Fogos.pt channel, with peaks of views on September 16 and 17.
App and Site Fogos.pt
Once again the app and website Fogos.pt were a reference for all who wanted to obtain information about the fires that affected our country, and the usage data are a sign of this.
For the period from 15 September to 19 September 2024 these are the data:
- Requests for information to the server: 542.17M
- Transferred Data: 11.4TB
- Website visits: 11.8M
- Requests to the API: 194.66M
Once again, we thank the PTSERVIDER, MAPBOX e CLOUDFLARE They support us with infrastructures and products that make giving this information possible.
Observations and Points of Improvement
During activation, we identified some areas that could be improved for future emergency situations:
- Fixing important messages on Telegram to facilitate access to the most relevant information.
- Study of a possible partnership with Waze to improve the speed and accuracy of real-time disclosure of traffic restrictions.
- Improved coordination of publications between different social networks, ensuring more uniformity across platforms, including channels such as Mastodon and BluSky. For this purpose, VOST Portugal will develop, from scratch, an open source solution that will allow its volunteers to disseminate messages, to all networks where the use of an API is allowed, through its own and unique interface.
VOST will continue to evaluate its operations and look for ways to optimize the response to the needs of the population in critical situations, always relying on official data and the feedback we receive from the entire community to ensure more effective communication.
For more information, follow our updates on our official channels.
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