Palmela Castle, beseiged many times before, but never quite like this.

Burnt landscape with a section of the Estrada da Cobra leading down from the castle.

Carbonised landscape with a section of the Estrada da Cobra.

Tree trunk twisted by the fire.

What was a path hidden by tall grass and bushes is turned into something more akin to a warzone or maybe from another planet.

Palmela Castle after the fire.

In destroying the overlying vegetation the fire reveals the bare earth and rock underneath.

Two agave plants, dessicated but not dead.

The fire did not claim any human lives but did claim those of many wild and domestic animals. It destroyed several properties that lay in it's path.

An old 'moinho' or windmill, it's superstructure of masts and rigging gone. The tar that waterproofed and held some of it together melted, marking it's side. Several windmills of historical importance on the Serra do Louro were destroyed in this way, one kilometre from the town.

The fire reached very high temperatures melting holes in this corrugated iron roof.

A burnt tree, a house that survived and a telegraph pole burnt from the bottom up, left suspended by it's wires.

Palmela, seen from the hillside after the fire..

After the fire.

After the fire.

Trees after the fire.

Grass turned to a mass of black filaments. Touch them and they powder. The ground beneath cracked by lack of rain and high temperatures.

A field of grasses and wild fennel plants carbonised. The tracks of a fire engine having taken a short cut over the field after the fire.

A mass of seeds, snail shells and old leaves.

Eucalyptus trees following the line of an old stream, their leaves dessicated, the surrounding undergrowth turned to a carpet of white ash.

Clouds of ash whipped up by winds that blew for several days after the fire, removing the ash and revealing the bare soil.

A once familiar path.

Charcoal pattrns on the bark of a dead tree.

An old tree collapsed and burnt from the inside out.

Pine trees, their bark polished black from the flames.

A tree twisted with age and burnt by the fire.

The same tree amongst others, their leaves turned to the texture of old paper, like a scene from a fantasy or dystopian film.

Incredibly just two days after the fire the green shoots of rushes the fire burnt so greedily before push up through the ground. Later rains will begin to green the landscape again though it will take several years for it to fully recover. The worry remains. What will happen in summers to come?