I can still see three small fires with flames about 2m high, approx 1k from my kitchen window near Picota. Last night was a little scary watching huge flames come up the Asseca valley and then at about 11am this morning the fires came through parts of Picota.

We have had three helicoptors dropping water for about 5 hours since but at the moment things have calmed down a little, I just hope that the wind does not get too strong tonight, or change direction !!

Perhaps we could swap a couple of days rain with sunshine for the UK.

A friend who lives 7 klms north of St Caterina has just rung and she's on her way down here for the night. The flames are two hills away and getting closer. Seems as if everyone in the area is about to leave.

Ash has been everywhere down here today.

Hope there aren't any more casualties.

Have just come back from Tavira fire station after dropping off juice and water, everybody is rallying to the appeal, they have the Police directing the traffic and they have dozens of people empting the cars as they arrive, having done 30 years in the job its great to see the firemen appreciated for their efforts.

thats great, will donate when back over

The turismo in Tavira is also taking food and water donations, or at least they were happy to take ours - it was announced on Twitter.

Is there somewhere I can look to see the area affected by the fire ?

It is a terrible for all concerned

Not really...the best way to stay up to date is to use a combination of Twitter and Google Translate (just search Twitter for "Tavira" and keep refreshing)

https://www.facebook.com/sulinformacao

Excellent link... thanks...

From the map with areas affected it seems the A22 goes right through it.? Has the A22 been affected?

Any news this morning? Is it under control? Twitter and the news websites are quiet and I can't see smoke from here...

Thank you for the link, I eventually got it to work ( my connection in the mountains does not allow all sites to load fully and I had to seperate the words in title) and can now see the area affected by fires. I hope they will be under control and out soon. It is not that near to the area I was worried about.

Tavira not as smoky as the fires seem to be moving to the west, just checked the Bombeiros website and there is 980 people still on the ground with 229 appliances, 5 air tankers and 7 helicopters.

The fires came with 80 metres of our place and the flames were 20 ms high. Our friends have a wooden holiday home next door to us and we were frantically soaking their place with water when the Bombeiros arrived, we couldn't leave as we had both sent our kids away in our cars- I tell you when I saw the fire coming down the hill towards us I was seriously scared. A fire engine got stuck going up the hill and the heat blew out their tyres, the flames engulfed the fire engine and then the petrol tanks literally exploed, we thought the men inside had perished, they managed to get out but with burns to their hands. A note to everyone living outside of a town, the Bombeiros told us that what saved our house was the fact the we cut down and cleared the land surrounding it, we have a large gravel swathe all around our property (which I hate but now see it's value) and this forms a break against the fire.

Wow! That's a serious story.
Is it still burning today? have they made any headway?
Fire engines as far as I know are all diesel; it has to get very very hot before it will explode.
I spent a couple of weeks clearing the brush from our land [west coast]. I was told that there's a law that every landowner has the responsibility to do that, but it isn't enforced anymore.
I hope your neighbors are going to make you a nice dinner!
Maybe not a barbeque though...

At 6 this morning they got it under control.