Key Benefits:
PROPOSED LAW NO. 130 /X
Exhibition of Motives
Local authorities have developed, since always, policies directed to help and
protection of persons and goods. Whether through the creation and maintenance of bodies of
firefighters sappers or municipal, wants to support very significantly the
bodies of volunteer firefighters, the municipalities and the freguesias have been consecrating
among its main policies, those which are directly linked to civil protection.
From the response to urban or forest fires and pre-hospital relief, the
municipalities have also passed on concerns in the scope of planning
territorial and management of serious accidents and disasters.
In the wake of the large fires that occurred in the years 2003 and 2005, the
municipal chambers created technical offices and developed defence plans of the
forest, at the same time that they realized operational plans.
Also the growing demands on the level of fire safety, the new
responsibilities in the context of the prevention of accidents involving hazardous materials and
concerns about the supply of drinking water or with the floods and floods
were demonstrating the need for the creation of structures that develop the study
of the risks, predict the occurrences of accidents and structure, planning and exercising,
the answers.
With the approval of the new Civil Protection Bases Act and with the realization of the
Integrated Protection and Relief System were also created the foundations of a
single command at the institutional and operational level it now needs to be
concretized, too, within the framework of municipalities.
The present legislative innovation promotes the integration of all instruments and
structures, while determining the articulation form of civil protection officers in the
scope of each municipality.
Ensuring that the mayor of the city hall is the municipal protection authority
civil, which in the municipal commission articulates representatives of all structures
public and private required for intervention in the face of serious accidents and disasters,
2 to 2
further defining the structure of municipal services and their competences and
concretizing the figure of the municipal operational commander, finishes the structure of
civil protection in all territorial ambits.
The National Association of Portuguese Municipalities and the Association were heard
National of Freguesias, and the optional title, the League of Portuguese Firefighters and the
National Association of Professional Firefighters.
The negotiation procedures arising from the Act No 23/98 of 16 have been complied with
of May.
Thus:
Under the terms of the paragraph d) of Article 197 (1) of the Constitution, the Government presents to the
Assembly of the Republic the following proposal for a law:
Article 1.
Object and scope
This Law sets out the institutional and operational framework of civil protection in the
municipal scope, establishes the organization of the Municipal Services of Civil Protection
and determines the competences of the Municipal Operational Commander in
development of Law No 27/2006 of July 3.
Article 2.
Objectives and fields of performance
1-Are fundamental objectives of municipal civil protection:
a) Preventing in the municipal territory the collective risks and the occurrence of accident
grave or disaster of them resulting;
b) Mitigate in the area of the municipality the collective risks and limit its effects on the
case of the occurrences described in the preceding paragraph;
c) To soccur and watch in the municipal territory the people and other living beings in
danger and protect cultural, environmental and high interest goods and values
public;
d) Support the reposition of the normalcy of people's lives in the areas of the municipality
affected by serious accident or disaster.
3 to 3
2-A municipal civil protection activity is carried out in the following areas:
a) Surveying, forecasting, evaluating and preventing the collective risks of the
municipality;
b) Permanent analysis of municipal vulnerabilities in the face of risk situations;
c) Information and training of the populations of the municipality, aiming at its
sensitization on self-protection and collaboration with the
authorities;
d) Planning of emergency solutions, aiming at the search, rescue, the
provision of relief and assistance, as well as evacuation, accommodation and
supply of the populations present in the municipality;
e) Inventorisation of the resources and means available and of the most easily
mobilizable, at the municipal level;
f) Study and dissemination of appropriate forms of protection of buildings in general,
of monuments and other cultural assets, of infrastructure, of heritage
archival, of essential services facilities as well as the environment and
of the existing natural resources in the municipality;
g) Prediction and planning of actions achievable in the eventuality of isolation of
areas affected by risks in the municipal territory.
Article 3.
Municipal civil protection commission
1-In each municipality there is a municipal civil protection commission (CMPC),
body that ensures that all entities and institutions of municipal scope
Essential to the operations of protection and relief, emergency and assistance
predictable or arising from serious accident or disaster are articulated to each other,
guaranteeing the means deemed appropriate to the management of the occurrence in each case
concrete.
2-Integrate the municipal civil protection commission:
a) The president of the city hall, who presides;
b) The municipal operational commander;
c) An element of the command of each existing fire department in the municipality;
d) An element of each of the security forces present in the municipality;
e) The health authority of the municipality;
4 to 4
f) The maximum leader of the local health unit or the director of the health centre
and the director of the hospital of the area of influence of the municipality, designated by the
director-general of health;
g) A representative of the services of social security and solidarity;
h) The representatives of other entities and services implanted in the municipality,
whose activities and functional areas can, in accordance with the existing risks
and the characteristics of the region, contribute to the civil protection actions.
3-Are competencies of municipal civil protection committees as assigned by law
to district civil protection district commissions that prove appropriate to the reality and
size of the municipality, specifically the following:
a) To actualize the drafting of the municipal emergency plan, to remetallise it for
approval by the National Commission for Civil Protection and accompany its
execution;
b) Follow up with policies directly connected to the civil protection system that
are developed by public servants;
c) Determine the actuation of the plans, when this is justified;
d) Ensure that the entities and institutions that integrate CMPC accompanies, to the
municipal level, within the framework of its organic structure and assignments, the
means necessary for the development of civil protection actions;
e) Disseminate communiqués and notices to populations and entities and institutions,
including the media bodies.
Article 4.
Standing subcommittees
In the municipalities where this is justified, in the face of the predictable frequency or magnitude of the
manifestation of certain risk, the municipal civil protection commission may
determine the constitution of permanent subcommittees, which have as their object the
continuous monitoring of that situation and the subsequent civil protection actions,
specifically in the areas of flood safety, fires of different
natures, biological or chemical accidents.
5 to 5
Article 5.
City chamber
1-Compete to the city hall, through the SMPC, the drafting of the municipal plan
of emergency for further approval by the National Commission on Civil Protection.
2-A The municipal chamber is heard on the establishment of measures to use the
soil taken after the declaration of the calamity situation, specifically how much
to special protection measures and preventive measures adopted for regulation
provisional of the use of the soil in bounded parts of the area covered by the declaration,
particularly by virtue of the suspension of municipal planning plans
territory or special planning plans of the territory.
Article 6.
President of the city hall
1-The chairman of the city hall is the municipal civil protection authority.
2-The chairman of the city hall is competent to declare the alert situation of
municipal scope and is heard by the Civil Governor for the purpose of the declaration of the
district-wide alert situation, when the area of the respective
municipality.
Article 7.
Joints of freguesia
The freighters ' joints have a duty to collaborate with municipal services of
civil protection, by providing all the help they are asked for, within their
assignments and competences, either own or delegated.
Article 8.
Local units
Depending on the specific location of certain risks, the municipal commission of
civil protection may determine the existence of local civil protection units of
scope of freguesia, the respective constitution and tasks.
6 to 6
Article 9.
Municipal civil protection services
1-The municipalities are endowed with a municipal civil protection service (SMPC),
responsible for the pursuit of civil protection activities in the municipal scope.
2-SMPC are the appropriate for the exercise of the protective and relief function, variables
in accordance with the characteristics of the population and the risks existing in the municipality and
that, when the size and characteristics of the municipality justifying it, may include
the technical offices that are judged to be appropriate.
3-The SMPC is directed by the President of the City Hall, with the faculty of
delegation at the councillor per se designated.
Article 10.
Competencies of municipal civil protection services
1-Compete to the SMPC ensuring the operation of all municipal bodies of
civil protection, as well as to centralize, handle and disseminate all information received
on municipal civil protection.
2-Within the scope of its planning and operations powers, it has the SMPC of the
following competencies:
a) Follow up on the elaboration and update the municipal emergency plan and the
special plans, when these exist;
b) Ensuring the functionality and effectiveness of the SMPC framework;
c) Inventorying and permanently updating the records of means and resources
existing in the county, with an interest for the SMPC;
d) Conduct technical studies with a view to identification, analysis and consequences
of natural, technological and social risks that may affect the municipality, in
function of the estimated magnitude and the foreseeable site of its occurrence,
promoting your cartography, so as to prevent, when possible, your
manifestation and to evaluate and minimise the effects of its consequences
predictable;
e) Keep up-to-date information on serious accidents and disasters occurring
in the municipality, as well as on elements concerning the conditions of occurrence,
7 to 7
to the measures adopted to cope with the respective consequences and the
conclusions on the success or unsuccessful actions taken in each case;
f) Planning the logistical support to be provided to the victims and relief forces in situation
of emergency;
g) To raise, organise and manage the accommodation centres to be actioned in a situation of
emergency;
h) Draw up prior plans for intervention and prepare and propose the implementation of
exercises and simulacons that contribute to an effective performance of all the
entities intervening in civil protection actions;
i) Studying the issues of which it comes to be entrusted, proposing the solutions that
consider more suitable.
3-In the areas of prevention and safety, the SMPC is competent to:
a) To propose security measures in the face of the inventoried risks;
b) Collaborate in the elaboration and execution of drills and simulacons;
c) Elaborate prevention and safety regulatory projects;
d) Carry out awareness raising actions for safety issues, preparing and
organizing populations in the face of foreseeable risks and scenarios;
e) Promote information campaigns on preventive measures, directed at
specific segments of the target population, or about specific risks in
provable scenarios previously defined;
f) To foster volunteerism in civil protection;
g) Studying the issues of which it comes to be entrusted, proposing the solutions that
understand more suitable.
4-As far as the subject of public information is concerned, the SMPC has the following
powers:
a) To ensure the research, analysis, selection and dissemination of documentation with
importance for civil protection;
b) Disclose the mission and structure of the SMPC;
c) Collect the public information emanating from the committees and offices that
integrate the SMPC intended for public disclosure regarding measures
preventive or disaster situations;
d) To promote and encourage dissemination actions on civil protection from the
municipes with a view to the adoption of self-protective measures;
e) Indicate, on the imminence of major accidents or disasters, the guidelines,
8 to 8
preventive measures and procedures to be had by the population to cope with the
situation;
f) To follow up on other procedures, by determination of the President of
city hall or councillor with delegated competencies.
5-In the forest scope the skills of the SMPC can be exercised by the cabinet
forest technician.
Article 11.
Coordination and institutional collaboration
1-The various bodies that integrate the municipal civil protection service must
establish among themselves institutional collaborative relations, in the sense of increasing the
effectiveness and effectiveness of the measures taken.
2-Such articulation and collaboration should not call into question the ultimate responsibility of the
chair of the city hall, and it should be articulated with the competences that,
in this matter, they fit the municipal civil protection commission.
3-A The institutional coordination is ensured, at the municipal level, by the CMPC, which integrates
representatives of the entities, whose intervention is justified in function of each
occurrence in concrete.
4-In the framework of institutional coordination, CMPC is responsible for the management of the
operating participation of each force or service in the relief operations a
trigger.
Article 12.
Participation of the Armed Forces
1-The chairman of the city hall is competent to request the President of the
National Civil Protection Authority the participation of the Armed Forces in
civil protection functions in the operational area of your municipality.
2-The speaker of the chamber may request the collaboration of the Armed Forces
directly to the commander of the unit deployed in his municipality, in the cases of
manifest urgency provided for in Article 53 (4) of Law No 27/2006 of July 3.
9 to 9
Article 13.
Municipal Operational Commander
1-In each municipality there is a Municipal Operational Commander (COM).
2-COM depends hierarchical and functionally of the mayor of the city hall a
who competes in his appointment.
3-COM acts exclusively in the territorial scope of the respective municipality.
4-COM is named from among the universe of recruitment that the law defines for the
dystrital operational commanders.
5-In municipalities with professional or mixed fire bodies created by the
respective municipal chambers, the commander of that body is, by inertia, the COM.
Article 14.
Competences of the municipal operational commander
Without prejudice to the provisions of the Civil Protection Basics Act, it competes in particular to the
WITH:
a) To permanently monitor the protection and relief operations that
occur in the area of the concelho;
b) Promote the elaboration of the prior plans for intervention with a view to
articulation of means in the face of predictable scenarios;
c) Promote regular meetings of work on matters of scope
exclusively operational, with the commanders of the fire department;
d) Give opinion on the material most appropriate to the operational intervention in the
respective municipality;
e) Appear at the site of the claim whenever the circumstances advise you;
f) Take up the coordination of municipal relief operations, in the
situations provided for in the municipal emergency plan, as well as when the
dimension of the claim rewants the employment of means of more than one body of
firefighters.
Article 15.
Operational articulation
10 to 10
1-Without prejudice to the hierarchical and functional dependence of the speaker of the chamber, the
COM maintains permanent link of operational articulation with the commander
district operational.
2-Exceptionally, when justified by the breadth and urgency of relief, the
national operational commander can articulate operationally with COM,
without prejudice to the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
3-In the municipalities of Lisbon and Porto the articulation to which the preceding paragraph is concerned is
permanent.
Article 16.
Civil protection operations
In a situation of serious accident or disaster, and in the case of danger of occurrence of these
phenomena, municipal operations of civil protection, of harmony are triggered
with the municipal emergency plan, previously drawn up, with a view to enabling the
steering unit of the actions to be developed, the technical and operational coordination of the
means to engage and the appropriateness of the measures of exceptional character to be adopted.
Article 17.
Duty of information
All services and bodies that obtain information, directly or by
third party communication, on elements considered fundamental for the purpose of
taking of civil protection measures, shall transmit such information in the shortest
interval of time possible, to the municipal civil protection commission of the municipality to
that they report.
Article 18.
Municipal emergency plan
1-The municipal emergency plan is drawn up with the directives emanating from the
National Committee on Civil Protection, namely:
a) The typification of risks;
11 to 11
b) The prevention measures to be adopted;
c) The identification of mobilizable means and resources, in an accident situation
grave or catastrophe;
d) The definition of the responsibilities that incuvates the bodies, services and
structures, public or private, with competences in the field of protection
municipal civil;
e) The criteria for mobilization and mechanisms for coordination of means and
resources, public or private usable;
f) The operational structure that there is-to guarantee the steering unit and control
permanent of the situation.
2-Emergency plans are subject to a periodic update and should be
object of frequent exercises with a view to testing its operationality.
3-Civil protection officers collaborate in the elaboration and implementation of the plans of
emergency.
4-The municipal emergency plan obligatorily includes a letter of risk and a
prior plan of intervention of each type of risk existing in the municipality, elapsed
the scale of the letter of risk and the detail of the prior plan of intervention of the nature of the
phenomenon and should be appropriate to its frequency and magnitude as well as to the
gravity and extent of its foreseeable effects.
5-In addition to a general emergency municipal plan, plans can be drawn up
special, on special risks, intended to serve specific purposes, such
as the municipal forest defence plan against fires and plans to
emergency of the educational establishments.
6-In the case of the areas of homogeneous risk prolonged by the territory of more than
a contiguous municipality can be drawn up special supramunicier plans.
7-In the municipalities in which this is justified, special plans may be drawn up on
specific risks, specifically relating to floods, fires of different
nature, biological or chemical accidents, mass movements or earthquakes.
Article 19.
Update of municipal emergency plans
Municipal emergency plans in place must be updated accordingly
with the new civil protection legislation, as well as with this Act, within 180
12 to 12
days counted from the approval of the technical guidelines by the National Commission of
Civil Protection.
Article 20.
Defence of the forest against fires
1-In each municipality there is a municipal forest defence commission against
fires, which can be supported by the forest technical office, being its creation,
composition and competencies regulated by the willing diploma.
2-The municipal chambers, in the field of the National Forest Defence System
Against Fires (SNDFCI) exercise the powers provided for in the Decree-Law n.
124/2006, of June 28.
Article 21.
Career of civil protection
The civil protection career is created by a diploma of its own.
Article 22.
Duty of availability
The service provided in the SMPC is of full availability, so the staff who in it
exerts duties cannot, unless exceptional reason duly justified, leave from
attend or remain in the service in case of imminence or occurrence of accident
serious or disaster, under penalty of incurryof disciplinary responsibility.
Article 23.
Training
1-A The training of SMPC employees is carried out at the municipal or national level,
owing to the rules of operation and the curriculum contents in the
regulation of the National Civil Protection Authority, approved by the Minister
of the Internal Administration, heard the National Board of Firefighters.
2-Are entities authorized to provide the training referred to in this Article, the
13 to 13
Center for Autarctic Studies and Training, the National School of Firefighters and the
School of Training of the Regiment of Firefighters Firefighters from Lisbon, and still the
too many entities that come to be recognized by dispatching ministers
responsible for the areas of the Interna Administration and the Local Administration.
Article 24.
Abrogation standard
It is repealed the Portaria No 449/2001 of May 5.
Article 25.
Production of effects
Municipalities adapt their services to the scheme provided for in this Law within the period of
180 days.
Seen and approved in Council of Ministers of March 15, 2007
The Prime Minister
The Minister of the Presidency
The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs