Immigrants Fought Portugal’s Fires. The Far Right Lit a Different One.

Portugal’s forests were on fire again this summer. That’s no surprise — eucalyptus monocultures and climate breakdown have turned half the country into a tinderbox. But this year, the flames were joined by another blaze: a wave of online fury aimed not at the fires, but at the people fighting them.

Photos started circulating of groups of men in yellow firefighting gear: Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Brazilians, Indians. Immigrants drafted into Portugal’s underpaid, overworked fire brigades, hauling hoses and cutting fire lines where few locals want to tread. Instead of respect, they got disinformation. Comment sections lit up with claims that the photos were “AI fabrications,” propaganda cooked up to sell a happy-clappy tale of migrant heroism.

Some even accused Lusa, the state news agency, of pushing fakes. The agency had to step in and issue the kind of statement no newsroom should have to make: no, these aren’t AI; these are actual human beings risking their necks in the interior of Portugal.

The invisible backbone of Portugal’s fire fight

Here’s the thing: immigrants have been part of Portugal’s firefighting backbone for years. Seasonal labourers, many undocumented, sign up for brutal summer shifts clearing brush, patrolling hillsides, and — when hell breaks loose — battling the flames themselves. They work the hardest jobs in the hottest months, often for pitiful pay.

Expresso caught up with some of them in August, in the north and centre of the country. The photos showed men sharing Cokes at picnic tables after a 12-hour shift, sitting on benches in dusty gear, standing in formation in the forest. Nothing glamorous. Just tired, sunburnt faces.

“Against fire there are no nationalities, the enemy is the same for all of us.”

But that kind of quiet solidarity doesn’t trend. Conspiracy theories do.

AI paranoia meets political opportunism

Why did these pictures set off so many alarm bells? Because we’re living in a moment where people trust algorithms more than they trust journalists. A photo looks “too neat,” a background looks “too clean,” and suddenly half the internet cries AI!

Fact-checkers dismantled the accusations. The images were taken in Portugal. The people are real. But the paranoia says a lot about how fragile trust in institutions has become — and how easily that fragility can be weaponised.

Enter Chega: the kings of hypocrisy

And no one plays the weaponisation game better than Chega. Portugal’s far-right party thrives on painting immigrants as criminals, parasites, or just plain unwanted. Their leader, André Ventura, has built a career out of demanding deportations and cutting benefits for foreigners, sneering about who belongs and who doesn’t.

So when images appear of immigrants literally saving Portuguese homes from burning down? That’s a nightmare for Chega’s narrative. Cue the fake-photo theories. It’s easier to dismiss the reality than admit your favourite scapegoats are out there doing the work you won’t.

And then there’s Ventura himself. While immigrant brigades were knee-deep in smoke and sweat, Ventura posted his own photos from the fire zone: shirt sleeves rolled up, chin set, striking a pose like some frontline hero. Call it “all hands on deck” cosplay.

It was pure cheap propaganda. A man who spends his days slagging off immigrants suddenly staging himself as the face of national sacrifice — while ignoring the brown and Black men doing the actual labour. Ventura got his likes. The immigrant crews got overlooked. That’s the hypocrisy in full colour.

Who gets to be seen

The real scandal isn’t that people thought the photos were fake. It’s that these workers are invisible until they’re doubted. Portugal runs on immigrant labour — in the fields, on construction sites, and yes, on the fire lines — but public debate only notices them when it’s time to demonise or dismiss.

That invisibility serves a purpose. It lets politicians like Ventura rail against immigration in Lisbon or the Algarve, while relying on immigrant sweat to keep the countryside from burning down.

Real flames, real faces

The fact-checkers cleared it up: these aren’t AI hallucinations. They’re human beings, fighting Portugal’s most relentless enemy. And as the climate crisis deepens, the fire season will only get longer, the reliance on immigrant labour even heavier, and the political scapegoating nastier.

The photos stand as proof: the men in yellow, tired and underpaid, kept villages alive while the country argued about whether they even existed. Meanwhile Ventura was busy rolling up his sleeves for the camera.

One side brought sweat, smoke, and solidarity. The other brought a photo-op. Guess which one the flames respected.