According to the Secretary of State for Civil Protection, Rui Rocha, "this cannot be subject to volunteering."

"Currently, we have 765 permanent teams, and our goal will be to truly ensure that in all municipalities in Portugal there is a [professionalised] first response team 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," he said.

The minister was speaking to reporters after a meeting with the Regional Secretary of Health and Civil Protection of Madeira, Micaela Freitas, held in Funchal as part of a working visit to the autonomous region.

"Our goal is, and it is in the Government Program, to professionalise the first responders," he declared.

Rui Rocha said that this objective does not prevent the country from continuing to rely on "the dimension of volunteerism, its training, its education, its experience."

"It is essential that it be this way," he reinforced, emphasising that the country has "scarce resources."

"I would say that it does not have the financial capacity, on the one hand, to achieve full professionalization, and on the other, I think it would be wasting a tradition that exists in Portugal of volunteering with very capable people," he added.

The Secretary of State for Civil Protection noted that of the approximately 15,000 firefighter personnel on the mainland, more than 11,000 are volunteers, but reiterated that the government intends to professionalise the first responders.