Fire Threatens Homes

This evening a fire in the Sítio do Barreira above Santo Antonio has rekindled and with a change in wind direction, threatens peoples homes.

In the last few minutes the situation has become worse with the wind and moving towards houses, and with reports of some homes already being damaged by fire. fire fights from 4 areas are at the scene along with police controlling the traffic and evacuating residents.

The weather outlook is for this dry heat to continue over the next few days at least , and if the wind picks up more then we could see more fires breaking out.

driving back from Funchal today things seemed settled, with just pockets of smoke here and there through the high land above Funchal.

Fire above Santo Antonio moving towards property with the wind.

UPDATE

This morning the situation is much calmer in Sitia do Barreira, firefighters are still at the scene, but the fire is more under control now.

Madeira will remain on yellow alert for high temperatures until Wednesday evening-

The fires at Monte the other night made the BBC news.