SIRESP today would resist a blackout, says former technical director

O former technical director of the company that manages SIRESP Carlos Leitão assured in parliament that if the blackout of 2025 was today it would not have caused the problems that occurred then in emergency communications.

Carlos Leitão was the first coordinator of a work team to conduct a strategic technical study to replace the Integrated Emergency and Security Networks System (SIRESP), created following problems with the system during the blackout of April 2025, when, in the words of the responsible, “25-30%” of the stations had anomalies.

The person responsible, who spoke in the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the business of rural fires, returned at the beginning of the month to the company managing SIRESP.

Last year he resigned from office after the government had the commission's work suspended and five months passed without justification, he recalled today.

Currently, he explained, the anomaly situation verified in the blackout would not have happened because there was a battery replacement that allows longer duration in case of power failure. Batteries replacement, needed, was already underway last year.

At the hearing, Carlos Leitão said he did not know what led to the arrest of the study, said he agreed with the subsequent conclusions of the study, recalled that the disciplinary inquiry that was moved to him was filed and ensured that he had had transparent conduct, and denied ever having been aware of any case of corruption or illegality linked to means for fighting forest fires.

Carlos Leitão also said that Siresp does not talk about extinction and added that it is working, implementing projects to increase resilience and to evolve to a more technologically advanced model.

Currently, he has ensured, there are fewer and fewer complaints about SIRESP, which now has more comprehensive mobile stations, inserted in a set of projects that were funded with support from the PRR. “Today the network is able to fulfill the designs for which it was built,” he assured, adding that with the evolution of technology the system is being replaced to support this technology, such as image transmission.

The inquiry committee also heard the former chief inspector of PJ António Carvalho, who had already retired and trained in investigating the causes of the fires, who questioned whether he is aware of illicit or corruption in the matter linked to means contracted to fight the fires said no.

In the answers to the Members admitted having found some “specific interests” in situations of arson, pointing out cases, not significant, of local loggers, and who had no knowledge of cases involving “large institutions” linked to wood.

The responsible said that the predominant cause of the fires is the eventual and less the direct doll, adding that “there are not as many arsonists as that”.