Land Clearing in Alfama

About our service in Alfama

Even here, the annual duty belongs to whoever owns the ground. Under Portugal's wildfire prevention rules a landowner has to clear the vegetation on their land each year and keep managed strips around buildings, and the câmara municipal checks and can arrange the work where the owner has not. Owners of a small walled yard in the Sé or by Santa Apolónia rarely think of themselves as landowners in that sense, which is precisely why it catches people out. Our contribution is the physical work: cutting, gathering, carrying and hauling away. We do not submit anything for you and we cannot declare your property compliant. The rules and deadlines change from year to year and vary by município, so check with the câmara municipal about your own address. Alfama access shapes everything. There is often no street a vehicle can reach, or one that can only be used at certain hours, and the way in is a stairway, a narrow alley or a route through the building itself. So the work is done with handheld brushcutters and saws, and the cut growth is bundled and carried out in stages to the nearest loading point, which may be some distance away. We plan that route at the visit, because getting it wrong is what turns a morning into a day. Old enclosed yards hide a lot: rubble from renovations tipped into a corner, bagged rubbish thrown from above, broken tiles, rusted railings, fallen wall stone, and now and then an old cistern under the growth with a cover you would not want to stand on. We photograph anything like that and raise it before continuing. Self-seeded figs and shrubs do most of the damage in Alfama, rooting into walls and lifting paving, and they are cut back rather than wrenched out so the masonry stays where it is. Any tree gets identified first: cork oak and holm oak are legally protected in Portugal and olive trees are regulated, and an old potted or planted olive in a yard here is not unusual. If a tree is protected or regulated, removal goes through an authorisation, not a decision on the day. All the cut material leaves for a licensed disposal point, and none of it is dealt with by fire on the property.

Our land clearing work in Alfama covers:

Services Included

• Clearing small walled yards and enclosed logradouros
• Cutting back stepped terraces and neglected slope ground
• Cutting self-seeded shrubs rooting into walls and paving
• Felling shrubs and trees once the species has been checked
• Carrying out and hauling away green waste, rubble and fallen wall stone

Areas We Serve

We work in Castelo, Mouraria, Sé, Santa Apolónia and around the Escadinhas de São Miguel. Every job here is planned around the walking route and the loading point, and we confirm both at the visit before a crew is booked.

Work Gallery