History and memory of the place of fire in the sciences of the territory in Portugal: three interviews with Raquel Soeiro de Brito, João Filipe Bugalho, and João Castro Caldas

Abstract

As part of the research project FIREUSES — Burning landscapes: A political and environmental history of the large wildfires in Portugal, carried out at Universidade Nova de Lisboa between 2022 and 2025, a series of interviews was conducted with three professors and researchers who worked throughout the second half of the 20th century in the fields of geography, forestry, and agronomy: Raquel Soeiro de Brito, João Filipe Bugalho e João Castro Caldas. The primary aim of these conversations was to understand the historical relationship between these fields of knowledge and the issue of wildfires and the use of fire in rural areas. Taken together, these three interviews also provided insight into personal and family memories of a time in rural life in different regions of Portugal when fire had very different meanings from today.